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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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TWENTY YEARS AT SEA 



OR 



LEAVES FROM MY OLD LOG-BOOKS 



BY 



FREDERIC STANHOPE HILL 

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BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1893 



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Copyright, 1893, 
By FEEDERIC STANHOPE HILL. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 



TO MY WIFE, 

TO WHOSE SUGGESTION THE PUBLICATION OF THESE 
EPISODES IN A BUSY LIFE IS MAINLY DUE, 

31 Detiicate tW lioofe. 



INTRODUCTION 

In the old days, fifty years ago, when I first 
went to sea, it was the custom in fine weather, 
in most ships, after supper had been leisurely 
discussed and pipes lighted, for both watches 
to slather on the forecastle deck to listen to the 
yarns of some old tar, or to join in one of the 
many baUads with a rattling chorus, in which 
the exploits of Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, or 
some other dashing knight of the road were 
set forth in glowing terms and endless verses. 

Many an evening, when a boy, I have coiled 
myself up on the deck, close to the windlass 
bitts, with my jacket rolled up under my head 
as a pillow, and have listened with eager inter- 
est to those tough yarns, while the good ship, 
with every inch of canvas, from courses to 
moonsails, drawing, gently rose and fell with 
rhythmic motion, as she ploughed her way 
through the long rolling swells of the broad 
Pacific. 



VI INTRODUCTION 

A hundred feet above our heads, the taper- 
ing point of the skysail mast swayed ; in the 
heavens about us blazed the brilliant constella- 
tions of the southern hemisphere ; beneath us 
the waves gently swished as the sharp forefoot 
clave them asunder, and the story-teller droned 
on with his tales of peril by storm and wreck, 
or, perchance, in a lighter vein, dwelt upon the 
charms of that lass in some far-away port who 
loved a sailor. 

That was indeed the poetry of sea life ! But 
like everything else that is pleasant in this 
world, the hour in which we enjoyed it was 
brief and it came to an end, often in the very 
midst of the most exciting episode of a story, 
with the harsh cry from the quarter deck: 
" Strike eight bells ! Set the watch, and lay 
aft here and heave the log! " 

I here propose, in my turn, as though sit- 
ting on the windlass bitts, to give some chap- 
ters from my old log-books, which, however, 
are somewhat more veracious than many of 
the stories often told in that way. For bar- 
ring a little — a very little — license, such as 
must be allowed any old barnacle-back when 
he starts out to spin a yarn, these sketches 



INTRODUCTION vu 

may be considered very truthful pictures of a 
sailor's life fifty years ago, and veritable expe- 
riences in the navy during our civil war. 

Such as they are, then, I offer these sea 
stories to my young friends for their approval, 
premising by saying that a few of the sltetches 
have already appeared in the " Youth's Com- 
panion " and in the " Cambridge Tribune." 

F. STANHOPE HILL. 
Cambridge, 1893. 



CONTENTS 



PART I 

IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE page 

I. How I WENT TO Sea 3 

II. My First Voyage 24 

III. The Mutiny 40 

IV. Not Born to be Drowned ... 54 
V. A " Shanghaeing " Episode ... 64 

VI. To California before the Gold Dis- 
covery 77 

VII. Recapturing a Runaway ... 93 

VIII. Chased by Pirates 115 



PART II 

IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

I. The Outbreak of the Civil War . . 137 
II. A Night Attack by a Confederate 

Ram .148 

III. The Passage of the Forts and the 

Capture of New Orleans . . 162 

IV. On to New Orleans .... 178 
V. Chasing a Blockade Runner . . .191 

VI. A Narrow Escape 205 

VII. A Successful Still Hunt . . . 220 

VIII. Catching a Tartar .... 230 

IX. The Naval Traitor . . . . . 240 

X. Hunting for Bushwackers . . . 254 

XI. The End of the Struggle . . .271 



PART I 

IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 



TWENTY YEARS AT SEA 



PART I 

IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 



CHAPTER I 

HOW I WENT TO SEA 

It was a blazing hot morning of the first 
week in September, 1842. The sun was pour- 
ing down with the fierce heat that so often 
marks the departing days of our Northern 
summers, and the evil smells in the filthy gut- 
ters of the southern section of Brooklyn were 
more than usually noxious. 

A Knickerbocker ice-wagon had stopped at 
the corner beer saloon, and the sturdy, blue- 
shirted driver was carrying in a great block of 
ice, while the children of the tenement over- 
head were picking up the fragments from 
behind the wagon. Across the street, half a 
dozen frowsy, tow-headed boys were striving to 



4 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

drive an unwilling goat, harnessed to a soap- 
box on wheels, in which was seated one of their 
number, and the little wretches were cheer- 
fully beating the unfortunate animal with a 
piece of iron hoop, when it stopped, to bleat 
forth its complaint. 

A marine in blue uniform coat and white 
trousers, on duty at the Navy Yard gate, hard 
by, walked his beat, keeping close to the 
grateful shade of the high brick wall of the 
inclosure, and covertly watching the struggle 
between the children and the goat. The cor- 
poral of the guard lounged on a bench be- 
neath the wooden porch of the guard-house, 
deeply interested in the morning paper. 

Two persons, evidently strangers, came down 
the street, stopped hesitatingly at the gate, and 
asked a question of the corporal. 

"The Bombay, is it?" said the marine. 
" You will find her at the dock near the shears. 
Keep down that path to the right, pass the 
commandant's house, then take the first turn 
to the left, and you will see her." 

The elder of the two strangers, who thanked 
the corporal, was a grave, respectable, middle- 
aged man, with the general appearance of a 



HOW I WENT TO SEA 5 

trusted bookkeeper in some mercantile house, 
as indeed he was ; his companion, evidently 
under his charge, was a bright-looking lad of 
thirteen, dressed in a blue sailor suit, with a 
tarpaulin hat with long ribbons hanging down 
his back. The boy's fair skin and delicate 
appearance, however, indicated very plainly 
that he could not have had a very extended 
experience as a sailor. 

Following the directions given them, the 
man and the boy soon reached the dock, where 
a good-sized merchant ship was moored, taking 
on board the cargo that filled the wharf. 

Here we paused. 1 say we, for the boy was 
the writer, who is about to tell you his life 
story; and his companion was Mr. Mason, my 
uncle's bookkeeper, sent over from New York 
to see me safely bestowed on board the good 
ship Bombay for my first voyage to sea. 

" Well, Robert, " said Mr. Mason, " here we 
are ; and now, before I take you on board, I 
am instructed by your uncle to ask you for the 
last time if you still persist in your resolution 
of going to sea. It is a hard life, lad, and I 
ahnost wonder that you should desire to under- 
take it. Come ! take my advice ; it is not yet 



6 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

too late : had n't you better turn around and 
go back ? there is no harm done yet." 

" You are very kind, Mr. Mason, and I thank 
you for what you have said ; but I shan't 
change my mind. We will go on board, if 
you please. " 

But before leaving the wharf, as I shall have 
a long story of my sea life to tell, suppose I go 
back a bit and explain how I came to be start- 
ing out for myself in this manner at such a 
tender age. 

I was always a delicate lad, and had never 
been very strong, after I recovered from a 
fever that brought me well-nigh to death's door 
several years before, and I had never cared 
much for the usual out-door sports of boyhood. 
Then I had an untiring passion for reading ; 
and when I could curl myself up in a big arm- 
chair with dear old " Robinson Crusoe " or 
" Midshipman Easy," I was perfectly happy, 
and forgot all the world in the adventures of 
one hero and the frolics of the other. 

I have no doubt that my favorite books had 
something to do with it ; for by the time I 
reached the age of thirteen and had been in 
the High School a couple of years, I had 



HOW J WENT TO SEA 7 

firmly decided in my own mind that I would 
be a sailor and nothing else. I had not lived 
in a seaport, and knew nothing of ships or sail- 
ors except what I had gathered from reading, 
and there seemed to be no very good reason 
for this decision. But it was just possible that 
my old grandfather, who was a famous sea 
caj)tain in his day, had transmitted to me a 
strain of his sailor blood, rather than my poet 
father ; so instead of fitting for college or going 
into a counting-room, my parents at last con- 
sented that I should go to sea. 

My seafaring books had prepared me to ex- 
pect hardships in the merchant service that I 
would not find in the navy, and I was boy 
enough to be thoroughly alive to the attrac- 
tions of a middj^'s uniform and dirk, for they 
wore dirks in those days ; so when it ap- 
peared that a midshipman's warrant might pos- 
sibly be obtained for me by family influence, 
I was very anxious to enter the navy. This 
was before the establishment of the Naval 
Academy in 1843, and when midshipmen were 
appointed and sent at once to sea. 

But my father wisely said : " No ; let Rob- 
ert try one year in the merchant service, and 



8 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

then if he finds a sea life distasteful he can 
easily abandon it, without any breach of good 
faith. But if he enters the navy, he will not 
feel the same liberty to resign, nor indeed have 
the opportunity of doing so, until after the 
expiration of a three years' cruise/' 

So it was settled that I should enter as a boy 
on board the ship Bombay, Leonard Gay, mas- 
ter, bound from New York to Rio Janeiro with 
a cargo of naval stores for the Brazil squadron. 
The ship was owned by a relative of ours. 

How well I remember one fine summer day, 
fifty years ago, going down on Commercial 
Street in Boston with my father to order my 
outfit. I never pass along there now and in- 
hale the mingled odors of tarred rigging, 
salt fish and New England rum, that seem 
perennial in that locality, that this important 
visit to the outfitter is not recalled. The mist 
of half a century of years rolls back, and I, a 
grave, gray-haired, somewhat rheumatic old 
man, seem for a moment a light-hearted boy 
again. 

My father had been directed to the estab- 
lishment of an old sailor turned tradesman, 
quite an original character in his way, and very 



HOW I WENT TO SEA 9 

well known in those days for his good wares 
and honest dealing. He was instructed to 
provide me with everything necessary for a 
voyage to the tropics and a winter on the Eng- 
lish coast ; and while my father was discuss- 
ing the requisites for such a cruise with the 
proprietor, I was taking in the strange sur- 
roundings of the shop, so novel to a boy just 
down from Vermont. 

It was a small, irregular shaped store, very 
low studded, which had enabled the old fellow 
to avail himself of the beams, from which hung 
specimens of his wares, all of them new to me. 
Upon one hook was a complete suit of oil 
clothing, southwester (as the head covering is 
called) and all, dangling and swaying about 
^ in the summer breeze and looking very much 
indeed like some mutinous tar or heavy weather 
pirate expiating his nautical crimes upon a 
gallows. Brilliant red flannel shirts were 
stacked up in great piles upon the shelves, and 
formidable sea boots overflowed from boxes 
ranged beneath the counter ; gay bandanna 
handkerchiefs and glossy black silk necker- 
chiefs were temptingly displayed in the show- 
case : while on one side was a miscellaneous 



10 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

assortment of ironmongery utterly strange to 
me at that time, tliat I afterward came to know 
better as marline-spikes, prickers, fids, palms 
and sail needles, and sheath knives and belts. 

Jack's lass had not been forgotten ; for in 
the window were hung, as a special attraction, 
certain printed handkerchiefs with pictorial 
representations of the '' Sailor's Farewell," 
the " Jolly Tar's True Love," and other sub- 
jects of a sentimental character. In the rear 
of the store was an old-fashioned desk, with 
a fly-blown calendar hanging above it, and a 
ship's chronometer ticking away in its case on 
one side ; while above it, hung a spy-glass in 
brackets, and upon the shelf were an odd 
looking mahogany case and a ponderous 
leather-bound volume. These I came to know 
better, subsequently, as a sextant and the 
sailors' vade mecum, " Bowditch's Epitome of 
Navigation." 

This collection interested me amazingly, but 
I was soon called upon to select my " chist," 
as the dealer called the gayly painted box he 
exhibited for my inspection. It was dark 
blue with vermilion trimmings, and had green- 
covered " beckets," as the handles are called. 



HOW I WENT TO SEA 11 

This one, he said, '' was neat and not gaudy, 
and had a secret till where a feller could stow 
away his tobacco and his ditty box," which he 
seemed to think a very important considera- 
tion. This ditty box, by the way, is not, as 
one might well suppose, a special receptacle 
for ballads, but is for the thread, needles, 
buttons, etc., which are such necessaries on a 
long voyage, where every man is perforce his 
own tailor. 

Into my chest were, packed, under the ad- 
vice of the proprietor, an assortment of red 
flannel shirts and drawers, with thick woolen 
stockings for cold weather and blue drilling 
trousers and white duck frocks for the tropics. 
Stout shoes and sea boots and a full suit of 
oil-clothes were provided for rainy weather, 
and two suits of blue cloth went in — one for 
ordinary wear of satinet, the other of broad- 
cloth, with brass anchor buttons, for a Sunday 
go-ashore suit. These, with a tin cup and 
plate, a spoon, and fork for my mess, and a 
belt and sheath knife, completed the outfit, 
to which the dealer added, as a gratuity or 
" lanyap," as he called it, a dozen clay pipes, 
a pound package of smoking tobacco, and a 



12 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

bundle of matches, " to make tlie fit out reg- 
lar." 

These gifts, rather scorned at the time, came 
in good play at a later date, and gained me 
many desired favors with my future shipmates. 

By the time my chest was filled, locked, and 
the key deposited in my pocket, I was full of 
excitement and crazy to have it sent home for 
my mother's inspection. The business com- 
pleted by paying the bill, we returned home 
to Summer Street, where we were staying for 
a week with my uncle, and I answered every 
ring at the bell myself until the anxiously 
expected box was at last received. 

Nothing then would do but I must try 
everything on for my cousin's delectation, 
and the entire afternoon was devoted to a 
series of dress rehearsals with the different 
costumes. Poor, dear, little mother! many a 
tear she shed that night as she repacked those, 
strange, rough garments that were to take the 
place in the future of the delicately made 
clothing it had been her pride and joy to fash- 
ion for her dearly loved boy. 

The days now flew swiftly while I made my 
farewell visits to friends and relations, and my 



HOJV I WENT TO SEA 13 

chest was filled in every corner with tlieir last 
offerings. These, in most cases, took the form 
of rich cakes, mittens, or comforters for my 
neck ; but I well remember an eccentric uncle 
bringing down a pair of dueling pistols as his 
parting gift, to the great horror of my mother, 
but to my infinite delight, as all boys can well 
understand. 

Under the excitement of these preparations 
I had kept my courage up very bravely, but I 
almost broke down when the time can)e for 
parting and my mother clasped me in her arms 
in an agony of grief, exclaiming, " I cannot let 
him go from me ! " 

But when I was at last in the cars and had 
really started off on my journey, I felt that I 
must put aside all childish feelings and show 
myseK a man and an American sailor, I had 
insisted upon traveling in full sea rig, and I 
wore my new blue suit, with white shirt and 
black silk neckerchief tied in a sailor's knot, 
and a shiny tarpaulin hat, with long stream- 
ing ribbons hanging down my neck. I was, in 
fact, a veritable nautical dandy. 

As I was only thirteen and small for my 
age, I have no doubt I presented rather a 



14 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

noticeable appearance. At any rate I know 
that quite a number of passengers spoke to 
me very pleasantly on board the Sound boat ; 
and as I was walking through the saloon an 
old lady called me to her, and, after asking 
me no end of questions, gave me a kiss and a 
warm, motherly hug, rather to my mortification, 
I must confess. 

The day after my arrival in New York I 
was sent over to the Brooklyn Navy Yard 
with my uncle's bookkeeper to report for 
duty, and here we were. 

As I walked up the Bombay's gang-plank a 
rough looking man in his shirt sleeves eyed 
me rather sharply, and said, " Well, youngster, 
what do you want? " 

" I wish to see the captain, sir." 

" What do you want of him ? The captain 
is n't on board, but I am the mate." 

" I am Robert Kelson, sir, and I am sent 
to go to sea in this ship. Mr. Mason, here, 
has a letter to the captain." 

At this juncture my companion interposed 
and explained the matter to the mate, giving 
him the letter to the captain, and then, evi- 
dently very much disgusted at our reception, 



HOW I WENT TO SEA 15 

endeavored again to dissuade me from my 
project ; but I would not listen to him, and, 
shaking his hand, bade him good-by and ac- 
companied him on shore. 

When I returned the mate said : " Go down 
in the steerage ; you will find your chest there ; 
it came early this morning; get those long- 
shore togs off and put on your working clothes. 
Then come up here, and I will find something 
for you to do." 

I looked about, not discovering anything 
answering at all to my idea of a stairway, 
when the mate, evidently understanding my 
dilemma, shouted : " You Jim ! come here 
and take this greenhorn down into the steerage 
and show him his chest, and be quick about it ! 
do you hear ? Don't you two boys stay loaf- 
ing down there spinning yarns ! " 

I had never been spoken to so roughly 
before in my life, and for a moment I half 
regretted that I had not listened to Mr. Mason's 
advice ; but it was now too late, so I choked 
down a sob and followed Jim into that portion 
of the between decks from the mainmast aft 
which was called the steerage. 

My companion informed me that I was to 



16 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

sleep and mess there with him and the ship's 
carpenter. After looking about for a time we 
discovered my chest, half hidden beneath a pile 
of sails, and proceeded to pull it out to the 
light. 

" What in thunderation have you got in 
this dunnage barge ? " said Jim, as he sat down 
on the hatch coaming and looked at my be- 
loved chest, half in admiration at its brilliant 
coloring and half in scorn at its size and 
weight. " Why, it weighs pretty nigh half a 
ton, and it 's big enough to hold a fit-out for a 
three years' v'y'ge ! " 

As I deemed it advisable to placate Jim at 
the outset, I unlocked the chest, and hunting 
out one of the plum-cakes, divided it with my 
comrade, who watched this proceeding with 
ill-concealed anxiety and interest. 

" Well, by gosh, you 're a lucky feller ; how 
many more of these 'ere you got, anyhow? 
Lem'me look at your knife," as my new sheath 
knife turned up ; " what did you give for that 
knife ? I got mine down by Fulton Market 
for a quarter, and I '11 bet it 's as good as 
yours! Yes, sir! " he shouted, in response to 
an imperative call from the mate above; "I'm 



HOW I WENT TO SEA 17 

coming right along ! " And lie half choked 
himself in his effort to swallow the rich cake 
as he said, *' Look here, young feller, you 'd 
better hurry up too ; old Bowker will give you 
rats if you don't get on deck mighty quick ! " 

I put on my second best suit, all too good, 
as it proved, for what was expected of me, 
and hurried on deck. Mr. Bowker hunted up 
a scraper, which is a triangular piece of steel 
with a wooden handle, and initiated me into 
its use in scraping the pitch from a portion of 
the decks that had lately been calked ; and 
this, the first real work I had ever done in my 
life, was also my first lesson in " the sailor's 
art." 

At noon Jim and I were " knocked off," as 
stopping work is termed, and told to go to 
the galley and carry the dinner down into the 
steerage. Jim seized the kid, a small wooden 
tub containing a rough piece of boiled beef, 
and left me to bring the " sjDuds," as he called 
the potatoes. While the cook, who was as 
black as the ace of spades, was fishing these 
out of the coppers, he looked me over critically 
and said, " Wot 's yo' name, boy ? " 

" Robert Kelson," I replied. 



18 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

" Look yere, boy, we don't pomper no boys 
here wid no ' Roberts.' Yo' name 's Bob 
'board dis ship ; you understand ? Now, Bob, 
is dis yo' fust voyage to sea ? " 

" Yes." 

" Co'se it is ; any one can see dat. Well, 
Bob, if you 'haves yo'se'f and don't cut up 
monkey shines, like dat boy Jim does, I no 
doubt you '11 get on very well. But you 
mus' n't 'spect to be pompered. I reckon 
you done had too much ob dat a'ready by yo' 
looks. Now you go 'long down and eat yo' 
dinner, and den you come up and pick dis 
chicken f er me, and I gwine gib you dese tapi- 
oca puddin' scrapin's fer yo' dessert. I likes 
yo' looks, and I gwine stand friend to you, 
boy!" 

I had learned at boarding-school the lesson 
that it is a good thing to be friends with 
the cook, so I assented to this proposal and 
went below with the potatoes. 

" Chips," as the carpenter is called on ship- 
board, although we boys were not permitted 
to take this liberty, was a gaunt, red-headed, 
surly, opinionated Dane, a good mechanic and 
a splendid seaman, but anything but an agree- 



HOW I WENT TO SEA 19 

able messmate. As I came down he liailed 
me : " Vot, in de name of Heffen, you been 
doin' all dis time wid dose potatoes, you boy ? 
You 'spose I am goin' to wait all day for my 
dinner while you 're gorming 'round the galley, 
you lazy hound ? If you try any of your 
games on me, my lad, I '11 warm you up wid 
a fathom of rattlin' stuff ! " and so he grum- 
bled on, while I endeavored to explain that 
the cook had detained me. 

" Veil, don't you do it again ; that 's all," 
and he picked out the best of the potatoes 
and cut off the choicest part of the beef, 
leaving me the fat, which I detested, for my 
share. 

After we had finished eating this meal, 
which nothing but a healthy young appetite, 
strengthened by my morning's unaccustomed 
work, could have rendered endurable, I was 
instructed by Jim that it was the duty of the 
new boy to carry up the pots and pans to the 
galley to be washed, and Chips told me to 
hurry up and bring him a light for the pipe 
he was then industriously filling for an after- 
dinner smoke. 

I submitted to these orders with an ill grace ; 



20 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

and when I had seated myself on the spare 
spars lashed by the side of the galley, with 
the cook, whom I instinctively felt was a 
friend, I put the case to him and asked his 
advice. 

" Now, Bob," said he, " I tole you I gwine 
to be yo' friend, and I means what I said. 
I done tuck yo' measure, my son, soon 's you 
come on board, and I know'd you'se a quality 
youngster immegitely. You'se different breed 
o' dog fum dat low-down Jim, and dat 's why 
I tole you dat you was n't gwine to be pom- 
pered here, cos I wanted to prepare you fer 
what was comin'. Bob, you'se like a young 
bar ; yo' trouble 's all befo' you. But you des 
keep a quiet tongue in yo' head, and watch out 
wid yo' eyes open, and learn all you can, and 
'fore you know it you '11 be jest as good as any 
ob 'em ! " 

" Yes, cook, that \s all right, but I can't let 
Jim impose on me, you know." 

The old darky grinned from ear to ear. 
" Dat 's so, honey ! Blood will tell, sho's you 
born, and you'se got some of what my ole 
marse used to call ' diwine 'flatus ' ; wotever 
dat is, dat belongs to quality folks and always 



HOW I WENT TO SEA 21 

fetches 'em on top ob de heap. So if dat Jim 
runs you too hard, why I 'speck you'se duty 
bound to take yo' own part. You know wot 
de good S'marikan said : ' Ef de Farisee hit you 
on one cheek, you hit him on de udder.' Now 
Bob, here 's yo' pudden', and don't let de mate 
see you eatin' it on deck." 

The doctor, as the cook is always called on 
board ship, had been a plantation darkey, and 
possessed that keen insight peculiar to his race 
in certain matters. He recognized at once 
that I was of gentle birth, and attached him- 
self to me from the first. He was my firm 
friend as long as we were shipmates together, 
and many a surreptitious pot of coffee in the 
morning watch and plate of " menavalins " 
from the cabin table I owed to his kind offices 
during the voyage. 

For the remainder of the week I was kept 
busily engaged from early morning until dark, 
so that I was only too glad to crawl into my 
hammock soon after our simple evening meal 
each day, and I was not sorry when at last our 
hold was filled, our hatches calked down, and 
a gang of riggers bent our sails, and we were 
ready for sea. Then one afternoon our crew 



22 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

was brought down by a shipping-master, a tug 
came alongside, we cast off our fasts from the 
Navy Yard wharf, and steamed down the bay. 

As all my good-bys had been made in 
Boston, I experienced no particular feelings of 
regret as we passed down the harbor and bay, 
and at last made sail, cast off the tug, dropped 
the pilot, and saw Sandy Hook light sink away 
below the horizon. I had indeed no time for 
much sentiment ; for as the good ship began to 
rise and fall to the long ocean swell, increased 
by the strong breeze that was blowing from the 
southeast, I soon became oblivious to every- 
thing, for I was quickly in the agony of sea- 
sickness. 

Meanwhile the wind was freshening, and, 
the toi>gallant sails having been taken in, the 
shij) was plunging into the head beat sea and 
creaking and groaning in what seemed to mo 
a very ominous manner. I had already paid 
my devoirs to Neptune several times until I 
was fearfully weak ; and the last time, as I 
came from the lee rail, I fell prone into a 
convenient tub that contained a large coil of 
rope — the main topsail halyards, as it 2)roved, 
unfortunately. 



HOW I WENT TO SEA 23 

Just tlien a stronger flaw o£ wind struck the 
ship, and the mate, coming into the waist, 
shouted out : " All hands stand by to reef top- 
sails ! Let go the topsail halyards ! Clew 
down and haul out the reef -tackles ! Be sharp, 
men ! Be sharp ! " 

The words were meaningless to me, but I 
saw a form near me casting off a rope from 
a belaying pin over my head ; there was a 
whizzing sound ; I was thrown from the tub 
into the air with great violence, and I knew 
nothing further ! 



CHAPTER II 

MY FIRST VOYAGE 

When I returned to consciousness I could 
not at first imagine where I was, but the creak- 
ing and groaning of the ship as she labored in 
the heavy seaway and the abominable smell of 
bilge water soon brought me to a realizing sense 
of the fact that I was in my hammock in the 
steerage. After some mental effort I recol- 
lected that I had been thrown from the tub in 
which I had been sitting on deck, though how 
or why this had happened I could not under- 
stand. But I was too deathly seasick just 
then to care to follow out this train of thought, 
and I languidly dozed and wondered whether 
we should all go to the bottom together in this 
gale. I fancy I rather hoped we might thus 
end the matter with the least personal exertion, 
and that death under existing circumstances 
would prove a happy release. 

But I was recalled to myself by the cook, 



MY FIRST VOYAGE 25 

coming softly up to my hammock with a 
shaded light and gazing down at me wdth evi- 
dent interest. 

" Robert," said he, for the first and last time 
calling me by my full name, ''' is you come to 
yo'se'f, honey, sure enough?" 

I moaned, as a reply. 

" Oh, I reckon you'se all right now, Bob ! 
De ole man says dere 's no bones broke, and ef 
dat is so I specs you come out first-rate soon 's 
yo' stummick 's done settle down. But you 
certainly did have a mighty narrer squeak! 
Whatever put it into yo' head, bo3% to squat 
down into dat topsail halyard tub ? It 's a 
clean wonder you did n't get carried chock 
up to de main-top ! Well, I don't reckon you 
ever try dat seat again in a hurry. Now, 
honey, you drink dis 'ere pot of cabin tea, and 
den go to sleep, and by ter-morrow you '11 be 
as bright as a button." 

Any one who remembers a first voyage can 
imagine what I suffered in that abominable 
hole, alone and uncared for, save for the 
friendly ministrations of that poor negro cook, 
during the next three days. I really believe I 
should have died from mere exhaustion if it 



26 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

had not been for tlie little delicacies he smug- 
gled down to me. But fortunately there is an 
end to seasickness, and on the third day the 
captain condescended to remember that I was 
on board, and that he had not seen me since he 
had examined me after my involuntary feat of 
ground and lofty tumbling. So down he came 
into the steerage, and by his order I was car- 
ried up on deck into the pure, fresh air, where 
I soon rallied ; and before another day I was 
myself again, or nearly so, at any rate. 

During my illness the ship had been pre- 
pared for sea by work that is always done by 
the crew the first few days out from port. 
This consists in securing the anchors in board, 
lashing the spare spars on deck, and clearing 
away all rubbish that has accumulated in port. 
Then there is " chafing gear " to be put on 
aloft and a thousand odd jobs to be done that 
no one but a sailor can understand, all of them 
very necessary on a long voyage, however. 

The Bombay was, for those days, a good 
sized ship of about six hundred tons register, 
but she would seem a mere tender by the 
side of the marine monsters of the present 
time. Her crew included twelve men and two 



MY FIRST VOYAGE 27 

boys, with captain, two mates, carpenter, cook, 
and steward. The men had been, as usual, 
divided into two watches, and I had fallen into 
the mate's, or port watch. " It was Hobson's 
choice " in my case, as Mr. Bowker delicately 
remarked in informing me of my station. It 
was very evident that I was not, as yet, con- 
sidered a very valuable acquisition to his force. 

"Now look here, you Bob,'' said the mate 
one fine afternoon when I was barely conva- 
lescent, " you 've been playing seasick passen- 
ger about long enough. It 's time you began to 
be of some use on board and to earn your grub. 
I 'm going to be doctor myself ! Look up aloft 
there, my lad; do you see that royal yard? " 

I looked up, as he bade me, at the royal mast- 
head, where the yard seemed to me to be about 
five hundred feet above the deck where we 
stood. 

" Yes sir, I see it." 

" Very well, now suppose you waltz up there 
and take a closer look at it ! It 's going to be 
a very familiar road for you this voyage, and 
you had better make yourself acquainted with 
the way at once ; " and he smiled at his wit, 
which I failed to apjjreciate just then. 



28 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

The ship was on the wind, with all sail set 
and drawing well, and she was reasonably 
steady ; but as I gazed aloft the mast was 
sweeping about in a very dazing manner, and 
the rigging away up there seemed to me about 
the size of a fishing line. Remember, I had 
never been aloft in my life ! I hesitated. 

" Well, Bob, I am waiting for you, but I 
shan't wait very long, my son ; " and he picked 
up a piece of rattling stuff, a cord about the 
thickness of one's finger, and ostentatiously 
swayed it to and fro. 

I saw that he meant business, and I started 
on the trip at once. I have been aloft, since 
that beautiful afternoon, many times in howl- 
ing gales of wind to close-reef topsails. I have 
crawled out to storm furl a sail in a typhoon in 
the Straits of Sunda when the force of the wind 
pinned me to the yard and I felt that every 
moment might be my last. I went through 
that hell of fire in the old Richmond, astern of 
Farragut in the Hartford, when we passed Forts 
Jackson and St. Philip below New Orleans, 
but I am sure that I have never since experi- 
enced the abject fear I endured that day be- 
fore I reached the Bombay's royal yard ! 



MY FIRST VOYAGE 29 

But I stuck to it and I accomplished the 
task at last, and my first lesson in seamanship, 
and the severest one, was past. Perhaps some 
of my readers may think that I magnify the 
undertaking, but, as I have said, I was a 
country lad, and in those days boys did not 
have gymnasiums, as they have now, to pre- 
pare them for such tests. 

"Very well done. Bob, for a first attempt," 
said the mate laughingly, as I reached the deck 
and busied myself in getting my trousers 
pulled down my legs after my frantic strug- 
gle aloft ; " but I thought you would have 
squeezed all the tar out of the royal backstay, 
you gripped it so savagely. Oh, you '11 make 
a sailor yet, lad, or I '11 know the reason why. 
Now go forward and turn the grindstone for 
the carpenter." 

From that day on I was kept constantly in 
practice in going aloft, and was soon given the 
main royal to loose and furl; so that in my 
watch on deck no other person was ever sent 
aloft for that purj^ose, and what had been but 
a few weeks before such a terrible task, be- 
came mere play to me. 

Meanwhile we were making our southing all 



30 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

the time, and in due course we approached the 
equator. Here both Jim and I were subjected 
to the usual horse-play that in those days 
marked the event of "crossing the line," a 
custom now almost obsolete. 

Neptune, represented by one of the men, 
came on board over the bows rigged out in a 
wig of tow, with a long beard, carrying as 
a trident a pair of grains, a kind of four- 
pronged fish spear. He asked us neophytes if 
we would promise never to eat brown bread 
when we could get white, unless we liked it bet- 
ter ; never to kiss the maid when we could kiss 
the mistress, unless she were the prettier, and a 
lot more of such nonsense. As we attempted 
to reply one of the attendants forced a brush 
dipped in tar and ashes into our mouths, and 
they ended up by pulling away the board on 
which we were seated, thus giving us a duck- 
ino; in a laro^e tub of salt water. 

However, the mate would not permit the 
men to go too far with us ; so we at last es- 
caped from our tormentors, and from that time 
were forever " free of the line " and at liberty 
to exercise our ingenuity in torturing other 
greenhorns when we had the opportunity. 



MY FIRST VOYAGE 31 

I have failed to mention that our only 
passenger was a young passed - midshipman 
going out to join the Brazil squadron. His 
name was Clemson, and he was a general fa- 
vorite fore and aft. Some years later he was 
drowned while striving to rescue one of his 
brother officers at the time of the loss of the 
United States brig Somers, capsized in the 
Gulf of Mexico. A handsome monument was 
afterward erected to his memory in the 
grounds of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. 

As the days slipped along I was steadily 
gaining in the knowledge of my profession. 
On fine days, when there was little wind, I 
was sent to the wheel and taught to steer; 
at odd times I learned the mystery of making 
short and long splices and the various knots 
and " bends." From the drudgery of turning 
the winch I was gradually promoted to making- 
spun yarn myself, as well as plain and French 
sennit and other stuffs used in such quantities 
on board ship. Sometimes I was set at work 
ripping up old sails with the sailmaker's gang; 
again at cleaning out paint pots and brushes 
in the paint-room, and I was taught how to 
handle a brush and lay on paint evenly. A boy 



32 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

at sea thus really serves an apprenticeship 
at several trades, and a good sailor is, or 
should be, a seaman, a rigger, a sailmaker, and 
a painter ; he is in reality a '' Jack of all 
trades." 

Kept busily engaged in this way, it was not 
strange that the time slipjjed by so quickly, 
and it did not seem long when, on the fifty- 
eighth day from New York, we made the land 
on the starboard bow, which proved to be Per- 
nambuco, and five days afterward we sighted 
the Sugar Loaf, which rises abruj)tly twelve 
hundred feet from the sea at the entrance to 
the bay of Rio de Janeiro, one of the finest 
and most picturesque harbors in the world. 

As soon as our anchor was dropped in the 
lower bay, we were surrounded by a fleet of 
boats of curious construction filled with jabber- 
ing negroes and native Brazilians, but none 
were permitted to come on board until after 
we had been inspected by the customs officer. 
He was a very great man indeed, who came 
alongside in a barge, with a wooden awning 
over the stern, flying a large Brazilian flag. 
This boat was pulled by twelve coal-black 
Congo negroes, naked from the waist up, who 



MY FIRST VOYAGE 33 

rose to tlieir feet at every stroke, and fell back 
on the tk warts with a kind of rhytlmiic grunt 
that they gave in unison. 

The officer was a shriveled-up little Brazil- 
ian, looking like a cross between a chimpan- 
zee and a parrot, with his wizened face and 
gorgeous uniform of green and yellow — the 
bilious colors of the Brazilian Empire. After 
satisfying all the formalities, we were permit- 
ted to have the natives on board, and they 
came with great bunches of bananas, bags of 
luscious oranges and fragrant pineapples, and 
other tropical fruits in bewildering variety, 
and at what seemed absurdly low prices. 

Every one on board, fore and aft, invested 
in fruit, and we sat up late into the night to 
devour it, for it seemed that we could never 
be satisfied. Fifty years ago tropical fruits 
were not hawked about the streets of Boston 
as they are to-day, and I do not think that I 
had ever seen a banana before. So that after 
two months of salt-beef diet these delicacies 
were thoroughly appreciated. 

The day after our arrival was Sunday ; and 
after washing down decks in the morning and 
cleaning all the brass-work about the ship, 



34 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

a duty that especially devolved upon Jim and 
myself, we were informed by the mate that the 
port watch was to have liberty on shore for 
the day. 

How I did crow over Jim when this order 
was promulgated, for Jim was in the starboard 
watch, who were to remain on board, while we 
fortunate " larbowlins " were to pass the day 
amid the wonders of the strange city that 
looked so attractive from our deck. 

Jim took occasion to upset some dirty water 
over my newly cleaned shoes while I was get- 
ting dressed, and then laughed spitefully at 
my discomfiture. This was by no means the 
first unpleasant trick Jim had served me 
since we left New York, and I had heretofore 
borne everything patiently ; but this was the 
last straw that broke the camel's back. So 
we decided, after considerable mutual re- 
crimination, to settle the feud then and there 
comfortably in the retirement of the steer- 
age. 

I had gained immensely in physical strength 
during the past two months, yet Jim was still 
rather the larger boy of the two ; but I sailed 
in and succeeded, at last, in giving him about 



MY FIRST VOYAGE 35 

the most thorough trouncing he had ever had 
in his life. When he cried " enough " and I 
hauled off to repair damages, I caught a 
glimpse of the old cook gazing in an inter- 
ested manner down the hatchway at the af- 
fray. He grinned and shook his head approv- 
ingly. " Did n't I tole you so ? " he said as he 
vanished. 

After re-cleaning my shoes and effacing all 
evidences of the passage at arms from my 
face, I arrayed myself, for the first time since I 
came on board, in my best blue suit, and, top- 
ping it off with a new white sennit hat, I took 
my seat in the boat and was rowed on shore 
with the others of the port watch. 

We passed through a great fleet of ships of 
all nations at anchor, gayly dressed in flags, 
amono; which the brio^ht American ension 

o o o 

largely predominated, — for in those days our 
flag was found in every foreign port, — and 
were speedily deposited upon the landing stage, 
and made our way on shore. 

Here a strange scene was presented. The 
plaza was filled with people of all shades of 
color, from the Congo African to the pure 
white Europeans, scattered hero and there. 



36 AY THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

All were in their Sunday best, and witli the 
fondness of the negroes for the most brilliant 
colors, the brightest reds and yellows were 
everywhere seen. All were chattering in Por- 
tu2:uese in the most animated manner : and as 
every one seemed to be talking at once it was 
indeed a very babel. 

While I looked about me a tall, willowy mes- 
tizo girl came along carrying a tray upon her 
head, which at first I supposed contained some 
very elaborate confectionery ; but to my aston- 
ishment, upon closer inspection I found she 
was bearing a little dead infant, dressed in 
white and covered with flowers. She was on 
her way to the Campo Santo, as I learned, to 
have it buried, and carried it, as they carried 
everything, very naturally uj^on her head. 
At the cemetery the bodies of the poor were 
piled each day in a long pit, which at night 
was filled with quicklime and closed up. 

Strolling about, I came to a square with 
a large cathedral, near the Imperial Palace. 
While I looked around me a gay carriage, with 
six horses and outriders and a brilliant cav- 
alry escort, came dashing up, and the youthful 
Emperor, Dom Pedro II., then scarce twenty 



MY FIRST VOYAGE 37 

years old, alighted and passed into the church. 
This was the same Dom Pedro who a few 
years since visited the United States so unos- 
tentatiously and who was such an admirer of 
our country and of our countrymen and coun- 
trywomen. He died in exile a year or two 
ago, poor fellow ! 

As this was my first glimpse of royalty, it 
was, of course, very interesting, and I deemed 
myself quite fortunate at having seen this spec- 
tacle on my first day ashore. After the gran- 
dees had passed into the church, I continued 
on my tour of insj^ection, and soon came to 
the Rua de Ouvidor, where the jewelers had 
their shops. Here the show of diamonds so 
lavishly displayed recalled to my mind the 
stories I had read in the Arabian Nights ; and 
as I passed into the adjoining Rua Direta I 
was equally charmed with the wondrous feather 
flowers, for which Brazil was then so noted. 

But by this time, boylike, my appetite was 
asserting itself, and I began to look about for 
something more satisfj^ing than diamonds and 
feather flowers. I had been eatinir orano-es 
and bananas in the market-place, but these 
trifles didn't count for much, and I felt an 



38 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

overpowering desire for a good square meal. 
But I could not speak a single word of Portu- 
guese, and those now about me evidently spoke 
no English, so I was in rather a bad way. 

I walked on and on ; but as I had passed 
into the residential quarter of the city I could 
see nothinof lookino^ at all like a restaurant, 
and I became a little uneasy for fear I might 
lose my way. At this juncture I saw a very 
sweet-looking old lady standing in a doorway 
watching me as I approached her. I hesitated, 
half paused, and she spoke to me in Portuguese. 

I shook my head to indicate that I could 
not understand, and, in despair resorting to 
pantomime, pointed to my mouth to show that 
I was hungry. 

" Poor little fellow ! " said she in English 
to a little girl by her side ; " he must be 
dumb ! " 

Oh, what a relief it was to hear those 
words ! Did my own language ever before 
sound so sweet! I hastened to convince the 
lady of her error, and to ask her where I could 
find a restaurant. 

" Why, bless your soul, you dear little 
midget, come in and dine with me ! Whatever 



MY FIRST VOYAGE 39 

brought such a wee fellow as you all alone to 
Brazil?" 

I attempted to decline this hearty invitation 
of my countrywoman, as she proved to be, but 
it was of no avail, and I was taken in and 
dined; and later, when it turned out that 

Mrs. was an old friend of my uncle in 

Boston, I was given a very charming drive in 
the suburbs, and finally returned in great 
state, soon after sunset, to the landing stage 
with my new friends. Before leaving the kind 
lady made me promise to call upon her again 
when I next came ashore. 



CHAPTER III 

THE MUTINY 

I HAD been kept so late by my kind enter- 
tainer that I found, by inquiry of the boat- 
keeper of a man-of-war cutter at the landing 
stage, that the Bombay's boat with the liberty 
men had been gone for nearly an hour ; and 
the coxswain, seeing my dilemma, called in a 
shore boat pulled by a couple of darkeys, who 
agreed to take me off to my ship for a few reis. 

As we neared the Bombay I saw evidences 
of unusual commotion on board, and observed 
a signal of distress hoisted in the mizzen rig- 
ging. We pulled alongside, and scrambling 
on deck I discovered what was the trouble. 

Among the naval stores which composed our 
cargo were six hundred barrels of whiskey. 
In those days liquor was served out as a daily 
ration in the United States Navy, but the prac- 
tice did not prevail in the merchant service, 
liquor being allowed on board but few ships. 



THE MUTINY 41 

and it was served as a ration in no American 
vessels. 

Sailors have always been noted for tlieir in- 
genuity in stealing liquor ; and to keep tliis out 
of his men's reach, our captain had stored the 
barrels in the fore and after runs, or lowest 
part of the lower hold. The sailors were aware 
of this, and on this Sunday had found their 
opportunity. 

Mr. Bowker, the chief mate, and the port 
watch were on shore, and Captain Gay had 
gone on board another ship, the Angier, to pass 
the day and dine with her commander. This 
left Mr. Daniels, the second mate, in charge. 
He was a rather easy-going young man, and 
soon retired to his stateroom to enjoy the quiet 
day in reading an interesting novel. 

Chips, the carpenter, after smoking a pipe, 
went to sleep in his bunk, and the crew found 
little difficulty in taking from his chest such 
tools as they wished. With these the starboard 
watch proceeded to cut a hole through the fore- 
castle deck, and succeeded so well that by din- 
ner-time they had broken out the upper tier of 
stores and exposed the barrels of whiskey. 

The cargo they removed they piled up care- 



42 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

fully in the quarters o£ the absent port watch, 
filling their side of the forecastle up to the 
carlines. 

Not satisfied with broaching one barrel for 
immediate use, they providently decided to 
lay in a stock for future consumption, and to 
this end hoisted three barrels of whiskey up 
into the forecastle, and concealed them under- 
neath their berths. 

They then restored the remainder of the 
cargo to its place, and refitted the deck planks 
so carefully as scarcely to leave a trace of 
their work. 

After dinner the watch settled down to the 
business of drinking and carousing. When 
at five o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Daniels, 
having finished his novel, came forward to call 
away the boat to bring the liberty men on 
board, he was startled at finding the entire 
watch drunk and inclined to be very quarrel- 
some. 

He at once sent the carpenter and the boy 
Jim in the dingey on board the Angier to 
state the case to our captain, and he accepted 
the offer of Captain Edson to send the An- 
gler's boat for our liberty men. The two cap- 



THE MUTINY 43 

tains then came at once on board the Bombay, 
in the dingey. The arrival, an hour later, of 
the liberty men, who were also drunk, made 
matters worse, instead of better, for the two 
watches fell to fighting in the forecastle. 

This was the disturbance that was going on 
when I arrived on board. Captain Gay, who 
was one of the old-time sea cai3tains and a 
very " taut hand " with his crews, ordered the 
second mate to go down into the forecastle 
and bring up any rum he might find there. 
He supposed, of course, that the liquor the 
men had obtained had been smuggled on board 
from the bumboat. 

Mr. Daniels went down with a very ill 
grace, I thought. The forecastle was just 
then a very lion's den, and he did not stay long, 
but came up with a rush through the hatchway 
with a bleeding nose and puffed eyes. 

When he could res^ain his breath, he ex- 
claimed : '* Captain Gay, they 've got a barrel 
of whiskey there on tap, and they are fighting 
over it like a lot of wild Indians ! It was all 
I could do to get out of the forecastle alive ! " 

" A barrel ! What do you mean ? " 

" It 's just so, sir ; there is a barrel on tap, 



44 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

and they are drinking it out of their pint 
cups ! I am abnost sure it is one of the bar- 
rels from the hold, but how on earth they got 
it out I can't imagine. The hatches have n't 
been opened to-day ; that I will swear to ! " 

This was certainly a very bad state of af- 
fairs, and Captain Gay felt that he must take 
summary action. Going to the cabin, he re- 
turned with four revolvers and gave one each 
to the officers and to the carpenter. Then 
looking down the hatch, he shouted, " Men, 
come on deck at once, every one of you ! " 

A howl of derision was the only reply. 

" I will give you five minutes to get up here, 
or I '11 come down there and find out the rea- 
son why ! " he cried. 

They simply yelled defiantly in drunken 
chorus. 

" Come along, Mr. Bowker," said the cap- 
tain. " You and I will start these fellows up. 
Mr. Daniels, you and the carpenter put the 
irons on them as they come up the hatchway! " 

The captain and mate bravely started down 
the hatchway, revolvers in hand. They were 
taking desperate chances. It was no small 
thing for two men, even with arms in their 



THE MUTINY 45 

hands, to face a dozen sailors, maddened with 
drink, at close quarters, in a hand-to-hand en- 
counter such as this must needs be. But those 
old-time skippers were accustomed to rough- 
and-tumble fights, and they never shirked an 
encounter of the kind, even at long odds. 

Jim and I had gone forward to see the out- 
come of the affair, and we were, of course, in 
a high state of excitement as the captain and 
mate disappeared below. 

For several minutes there was a terrible 
confusion of voices in the forecastle, and then 
a sound of blows and oaths, followed by the 
sharp crack of a pistol shot. Then a brief 
pause, followed by a renewal of the uproar. 
Another shot was fired, and almost immediately 
the captain appeared on the ladder, struggling 
with a stalwart fellow who had grasped the 
pistol by the barrel, and was striving to get 
possession of it. 

The carpenter leaned over the scuttle and 
struck the sailor a heavy blow on the head with 
a pair of iron handcuffs, whereupon the fellow 
let go his grasp of the pistol and fell heavily 
down the ladder. The captain then came up, 
bleeding from a cut on the side of his face. 



46 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

evidently the result of a blow, and witli his 
clothing fairly torn to shreds. Mr. Bowker 
quickly followed, in an even worse condition, 
and without his pistol, which he had lost in 
the affray. 

Mr. Daniels pulled over the scuttle and 
slipped in the hatch-bar; and, feeling that the 
wild beasts were at least caged, our side called 
a parley. 

" I shot one of the scoundrels in the arm," 
said the captain. " Did your shot take effect, 
Mr. Bowker?" 

" I think so, sir ; but I am not sure of it. 
They closed in on me so I could not very well 
see." 

I haj)j)ened just then to glance through 
a port and saw a boat coming alongside. 
" Here 's a boat with some officers, sir," I 
reported. 

The captain went to the gangway and re- 
ceived a Brazilian officer who came on board. 
Looking curiously at the cajitain's disordered 
condition, he said, " I am sent by the port 
captain to inquire what trouble you are in, as 
you have a distress signal flying." 

The captain explained and the lieutenant 



THE MUTINY 47 

went forward to investigate. Mr. Bowker 
opened tlie scuttle, and the officer called down 
in liis broken English, " Mariners, I command 
that you come on deck at once ! " 

" Who are you, monkey-face ? " shouted a 
man from below. '' Get out of this, or we 
will serve you worse than we did old Bow- 
ker ! " At the same time a pistol shot whistled 
ominously past the young lieutenant, while a 
chorus of oaths and yells saluted him. 

" But, captain," said the young man, " this 
is truly a mutiny ! I must report to my com- 
manding officer and obtain further assistance." 
And he hurried to his boat and left the ship. 

By this time it was growing dark, and af- 
fairs were in a very bad state for the night. 
The two captains consulted together as to the 
best course to pursue. As discipline had now 
become almost a dead letter in the ship, we all 
gathered aft, having first secured the forward 
hatchway, and several propositions were dis- 
cussed by the officers. 

" Captain Gay," said Captain Edson, " if 
you take my advice you will not allow the 
authorities to interfere in the matter, at this 
stage of the mutiny at least. If they under- 



48 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

take to settle it they will put you to no end of 
trouble and expense, and possibly delay your 
voyage. I have had some experience with 
them in a similar affair. I would at least 
exhaust my own resources first." 

" That is good advice, as far as the Brazil- 
ians are concerned," replied Caj^tain Gay, 
" but what shall I do with those wild men 
down in the forecastle ? " 

" Come below and we will talk over a plan 
by ourselves, where we have n't quite so many 
listeners," said Captain Edson, as he glanced 
at my companion Jim, who, with mouth and 
ears both wide open, was pushing forward to 
catch every word. 

They went below, and Mr. Bowker, now 
that the excitement was over for the moment, 
found time to give us his attention ; and we 
were set at work cleaning up the decks, secur- 
ing the boats, and making all snug for the 
night. 

In a short time the steward brought up an 
order to the mate to take the Angier's boat 
and go on board the Brazilian man-of-war In- 
dependenzia, with Captain Gay's compliments, 
and to say that we should not require any 



THE MUTINY 49 

assistance that niglit, but should be glad to 
have the police boat sent in the morning to 
take the prisoners on shore. Before going the 
mate was directed to see that the forward hatch 
was well lashed down and that a kedge anchor 
was put on it as an additional precaution 
against its being lifted off by a combined ef- 
fort of the men below. 

As the " prisoners " were as yet a long way 
from being secured, we were all very much 
mystified by this message from the captain, 
and the mate remarked to Mr. Daniels in my 
hearing that he " thought the old man had 
better catch his chickens before he counted 
them." 

But all the same, he obeyed the order, and 
we went down into the steerage to supj^er, 
there to discuss the mutiny in all its various 
aspects. When the Angier's boat returned, 
Captain Edson went back to his own shij). 

That night the mates and the carpenter 
kept the anchor watches between them, and the 
crew lono^ before midnio;ht succumbed to the 
effects of the liquor, and were all quiet in the 
forecastle. 

The next morning we were aroused at day- 



50 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

light, and for once found tlie captain on deck 
as early as any one. Jim and I were sent off 
at once in tlie dingey to bring Captain Ed son 
on board, who came, bringing with him a 
mysterious package of something that smelled 
very much like matches. 

Captain Gay received him at the gangway ; 
and after they had drunk a cup of coffee, they 
both went forward with the mates and the 
carpenter, who to his and our surprise was 
ordered to bring his broad-axe with him. The 
captain then looked about carefully, and at 
last directed the carpenter to cut a hole through 
the deck planks something more than a foot 
square, between the beams. The carpenter 
was rather astonished, but obeyed orders, and 
the chips at once began to fly. 

The captain then went to the galley and 
returned with an iron pot, to which he attached 
a line, and Captain Edson poured the contents 
of his package into the kettle. By this time 
the hole was cut through the deck. 

" Stand by to open the scuttle, Mr. Bowker," 
said the captain. " Now, men," he called 
down, as the hatch was opened carefully, " are 
you coming up like men, or shall I make you 
come up like sheep? " 



THE MUTINY 51 

The crew greeted this request with shouts 
and oaths. Many of them had waked and 
were again drinking the liquor. 

The captain closed the hatch and called out, 
" Cook, bring me a shovelful of live coals 
here ! " 

The cook came with the hot coals, which he 
put, as directed, into the pot. 

As the dense white smoke of the burning 
brimstone in the vessel curled up, the captain 
lowered the pot through the hole in the deck, 
keeping it close up to the beams and out of 
reach of the men below, and then placed two 
wet swabs over the hole, so that none of the 
fumes could escape above. 

Flesh and blood could not endure the suffo- 
cating vapors that immediately filled the fore- 
castle. In less than five minutes there was a 
terrific rush up the ladder, and a violent effort 
was made to raise the hatch, which was pre- 
vented by the lashings and the heavy kedge 
anchor. 

" Stand by, now, all of you ! " cried the cap- 
tain to the mates, " and clap the handcuffs on 
them as I let them through, one at a time ! " 

He opened one door of the scuttle, through 



52 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

which the first man precipitated himself. He 
was at once secured and the door was closed. 
Then it was re-opened, and the crew were let 
out one by one until the whole twelve lay hand- 
cuffed on the deck in a row. The last men 
were scarcely able to crawl up, so dense were 
the noxious fumes in the forecastle. 

When the work was completed. Captain 
Gay walked up and down the deck in a high 
state of glee at the entire success of his experi- 
ment, and addressed the captives as he passed : 

" Oh, you are a j^recious lot of scoundrels, 
are n't you ? You thought you had the 
weather-gage of me, did you ? I think you 
will sing a different tune when you find your- 
selves in the calaboose ! I have more than 
half a mind to give you a round dozen apiece 
before I send you there, just to warm myself 
up this morning ! But I won't soil my fingers 
with you, you drunken brutes, much as I 
should enjoy it ! Mr. Bowker, signal for the 
police boat, and send these fellows off as 
quickly as possible and let us be rid of them ! " 

He turned aft, and went down to breakfast 
with Captain Edson. 

When the police boat came, the officer was 



THE MUTINY 53 

greatly surprised at finding so large a number 
of prisoners awaiting him. Tliey were taken 
on shore ; and after remaining in the city 
prison until we sailed, they were, as we subse- 
quently learned, released, and were shipped by 
a whaler who came in short of hands. 

Our captain picked up another crew with- 
out much difficulty, and we went on unlading. 
We then took on board a cargo of coffee and 
carried it to New Orleans, where we loaded 
with cotton for Liverpool. 



CHAPTER IV 

NOT BOKN TO BE DROWNED 

The next voyage of the Bombay was to 
Mobile for a cargo of cotton, to be carried to 
Liverpool. It was the custom in those days 
for ships of any great size to discharge and take 
in their cargoes in the lower bay. The city 
is on the Mobile River, fully twenty-five miles 
above the entrance to the lagoon-like bay, cut 
off from the Gulf of Mexico by a narrow 
isthmus, upon the point of which the light- 
house stands. 

The Bombay came to Mobile in ballast, so 
there was no cargo to discharge, very much 
to our satisfaction, as everything had to be 
loaded into large lighters, which made hard 
work for the crew. 

Captain Gay, as was the custom, went up 
to the city as soon as the ship was safely 
anchored, to superintend the work of the 
brokers in obtaining freight, and to forward 



NOT BORN TO BE DROWNED 55 

the cotton to the ship with all possible expedi- 
tion. The chief mate remained on board in 
charge of the ship. 

Of all the dismal holes I had ever seen, the 
lower bay of Mobile was the worst. The low 
shores are either alluvial mud or clear sand ; 
there were no trees, no inhabitants but a very 
few ignorant fishermen, and absolutely no- 
thing to relieve the monotony of life on ship- 
board, divested even of the excitement that 
is found when at sea in the changes of wind 
and weather, and the making and taking in 
sail that follows calm or storm. 

We were supposed to be in port, and Jack 
dearly loves his " Sunday liberty," with its 
attendant run ashore ; but here no one cared 
to go on shore on Sundays or any other day, 
merely to wander about in the sand, half de- 
voured by mosquitoes, and without a living- 
soul to exchange a word with. Then, to make 
it even more disagreeable, as the bay is unpro- 
tected, and it was in the winter season, we 
were compelled to stand anchor watches at 
night, and keep our sails bent in readiness to 
slip our anchors and work off shore if a norther 
should strike us. 



56 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

I have since lain at anchor off some very 
inhospitable and uninteresting shores, but I 
do not remember anything more detestable 
than life in Mobile Bay in 1844, unless, in- 
deed, it was my blockading experience out- 
side of that same bay in 1862, of which you 
will hear before you finish this volume. 

Our only relaxation was crabbing. For this 
sport we took old iron hoops and wove upon 
them coarse nets of heavy twine, the meshes 
being very open. In these nets we fastened 
three or four pounds of the most ancient and 
malodorous salt beef we could find in the 
harness casks, — and these pieces could be 
scented the length of the ship. At night, 
the nets, heavily weighted, were thrown over- 
board with a stout line attached to them, and 
allowed to sink to the bottom. 

The next morning we hauled the nets in, 
and rarely failed to find from one to half a 
dozen enormous hard-shelled crabs entangled 
in the meshes of each net and viciously fight- 
ing with each other. The result of these con- 
tests was frequently seen in an unfortunate 
crab minus half of his legs. 

But the pleasure of crab-fishing soon palled 



NOT BORN TO BE DROWNED 57 

upon us, and not even a hardened sailor's 
stomacli could endure a steady diet of these 
crustaceans. So, after the first week the crab 
nets were neglected, and we were forced into 
spending our few hours of leisure in sleep, an 
unfailing resource for a sailor. 

However, the first lighter laden with cotton 
soon came down from Mobile, and with it a 
gang of stevedores who were to stow this pre- 
cious cargo. At that time freights to Liver- 
pool were quoted at " three half - pence a 
pound," which represented the very consider- 
able sum of fifteen dollars a bale. So it was 
very much to the interest of our owners to get 
every pound or bale squeezed into the ship 
that was possible. 

The cotton had already been subjected to a 
very great compression at the steam cotton 
presses in Mobile, which reduced the size of the 
bales as they had come from the plantations 
fully one half. It was now to be forced into 
the ship, in the process of stowing by the steve- 
dores, with very powerful jackscrews, each 
operated by a gang of four men, one of them 
the " shantier," as he was called, from the 
French word chantem\ a vocalist. This man's 



58 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

sole duty was to lead in the rude songs, largely 
improvised, to the music of which his compan- 
ions screwed the bales into their places. The 
pressure exerted in this process was often suffi- 
cient to lift the planking of the deck, and the 
beams of ships were at times actually sprung. 

A really good shantier received larger pay 
than the other men in the gang, although his 
work was much less laborious. Their songs, 
which always had a lively refrain or chorus, 
were largely what are now called topical, and 
often not particularly chaste. Little incidents 
occurring on board ship that attracted the 
shantier' s attention were very apt to be woven 
into his song, and sometimes these were of a 
character to cause much annoyance to the 
officers, whose little idiosyncrasies were thus 
made public. 

One of their songs, I remember, ran some- 
thing like this : — 

" Oh, the captain 's gone ashore, 
For to see the stevedore. 
Chokus : Hie bonnie laddie, and we '11 all go ashore. 

" But the mate went ashore, 

And got his breeches tore. 

Hie bonnie laddie," etc. 



NOT BORN TO BE DROWNED 59 

As Mr. Bowker had returned to the ship 
the day before, after a visit to the lighthouse, 
with his best broadcloth trousers in a very 
dilapidated condition, this personal allusion to 
the unfortunate incident, shouted out at the 
top of their hoarse voices by " Number One " 
gang was, to say the least, painful. We boys, 
however, thought the sentiment and the verse 
equally delightful. 

The second lighter of cotton was towed 
down to us by quite a large high-pressure 
steamer, the Olive Branch, that was going on 
to Pass Christian with passengers. After din- 
ner that day, Mr. Bowker, who was in an 
unusually amiable mood, called out, "You, 
Bob, take Charlie with you in the dingey, and 
go on board that steamer, and see if you can't 
get me some newspapers." 

Charlie was the new boy, the successor to 
Jim, who had unostentatiously departed from 
the ship, ''between two days," in Liverpool, 
last voyage. As Charlie was my junior, I 
took a great and not unnatural pleasure in 
making him as uncomfortable as possible when 
an opportunity presented. So I hauled the 
dingey up at once to the gangway, and, rous- 



60 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

ing Charlie up from his unfinished dinner, 
started off for the steamer. 

I had ah^eady become quite a good boatman, 
but this was a novel experience for me, and 
indeed it was quite a delicate matter to lay a 
small boat safely alongside one of those great 
sidewheel steamers while she was still in mo- 
tion, — for the Olive Branch had not anchored, 
but had only stopped her engines and was 
slowly drifting. 

As I approached the steamer I saw a man 
standing: well forward of the wheel-house with 
a line ready to throw to us, and I headed the 
boat for him. As we came within good dis- 
tance we tossed in our oars, the line was 
thrown, Charlie caught it, but stumbled and 
fell, and in a moment the dingey had capsized, 
and we were in the water and under the wheel 
of the steamer ! 

Unfortunately I had never learned to swim ; 
and as I was heavily clad I went down in the 
cold salt water of the bay like a stone, and for 
a few seconds experienced all the agonies of 
drowning ! 

Then I rose and, as I came to the surface, 
found myself among the '^ buckets " of the 



NOT BORN TO BE DROWNED 61 

great wheel of the steamer, which were green 
and slimy with river moss, and as slippery as 
ice. By a tremendous physical effort I suc- 
ceeded in getting astride of one of these 
buckets, and obtained a precarious j)osition 
of comparative safety, as I thought at first. 

But, to my horror, I was scarcely out of the 
water when the wheel commenced very slowly 
revolving. The terror of that moment I shall 
never forget. The recollection of it returns 
to me now, after all these years, and in my 
bad attacks of nightmare I sometimes fancy 
myself clinging again with desj^eration to a 
slowly revolving wheel, drenched, shivering 
with cold, and expecting each moment a hor- 
rible death! 

In my agony I shouted aloud; but, inclosed 
on all sides as I was by the wheel-box, I felt 
sure that my cries could not be heard. In the 
darkness of this prison box the wheel slowly, 
very slowly revolved, carrying me up toAvard 
the top of the cover, where I fully expected 
to be ground to pieces ; or if perchance I 
escaped that fate, I knew that I would be 
drowned when I was drawn under the water 
in the fearful suction beneath tlie wheel. 



62 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

Escape seemed impossible, but frantic with 
fear I again shouted at the top of my shrill 
young voice till my lungs seemed ready to 
burst. Then the wheel stopped. There was 
a pause ; I heard the noise of hurried feet 
upon the wheel-box above me, a trap door was 
opened, and the blessed light of day came 
struggling in. 

I saw a man looking earnestly down into 
the darkness of the space beneath him, and I 
tried to call out, but my voice seemed para- 
lyzed, and, for the moment, I could not make 
a sound. 

Neither seeing nor hearing anything, the 
man rose from his knees and was about to 
close the trap-door, when I made another ef- 
fort, and, thank God, a faint cry burst from 
my parched throat. 

The man paused, then sprang upon the 
wheel, picked ma up in his arms, and I fainted 
dead away ! 

After what seemed a long time, although, as 
I was told, it was but a few minutes, I recovered 
consciousness to find myself stretched out on 
a mattress, covered with a blanket, and sur- 
rounded bv a number of kind-hearted women. 



NOT BORN TO BE DROWNED 03 

The passengers had seen the boat upset and no- 
ticed ray sudden disappearance. Charlie, who 
could swim like a fish, was picked up, and de- 
clared that I was drowned. Indeed, he " saw 
me go down and never come up again." 

By the merest chance the captain had not 
started the steamer ahead. If that had been 
done I should, of course, have been killed. 

My clothes were soon dried in the engine- 
room, the dingey and her oars had been recov- 
ered, a generous bag of fruit and cake was 
packed for me by the sympathetic ladies, and 
we returned to the Bombay. 

As I came up over the side, Mr. Bowker 
greeted me with, '' Where have you been all 
this time, Bob ? " 

I exj)lained to him my narrow escape from 
a dreadful death, to which he cheerfully re- 
sponded : — 

" Well, Bob, you certainly were not born to 
be drowned ; look sharp to it, lad, that you do 
live to be hanged ! " 



CHAPTER V 

A " SHANGHAEING " EPISODE 

The next three years of my life at sea were 
but a repetition of the first three months of 
my experience, with a slight change in the 
scene of the incidents and a natural increase 
in my knowledge of seamanship. For when I 
returned to Boston in the Bombay from Liver- 
pool, at the end of ray first year of probation, 
and the opportunity was again presented to 
me of going into the navy as midshipman, I 
declined the offer of my own free will. 

My views had changed during the past year, 
for I had learned how slow promotion was in 
the naval service, and I had seen in our squad- 
ron in Brazil gray-haired lieutenants who were 
vainly hoping for one more step before going 
on the retired list. In fact, Farragut, who en- 
tered the navy as a midshipman in 1810, had 
passed through the War of 1812, and after 
thirty-one years' service was still a lieutenant 
in 1841. -^ 



A ''SHANGHAEING" EPISODE 65 

During my year at sea my dear mother had 
died, my home was broken up, and when my 
cousin, who owned the Bombay, promised me 
that I should have the command of one of his 
ships when I was twenty-one, if I proved my- 
self competent, I decided to stay where I was. 

I received my first promotion to the position 
of second mate, when I was barely seven- 
teen years of age, and a very proud young- 
ster I was when I heard myself called "Mr." 
Kelson, for the first time on the quarter- 
deck of the old Bombay, where less than four 
years before I had made my appearance as a 
green boy. 

We were lying at this time at the levee in 
New Orleans, not far from Bienville Street, 
and abreast of the old French Market. The 
Bombay was the inner vessel of three in the 
tier, and formed a portion of the tow just made 
up by the tugboat Crescent City, and we were 
only waiting for our crew, soon to be brought 
on board by the boarding-house runners and 
the shipping-master. 

There was a fine old custom that prevailed 
in New Orleans in those days of bringing the 
crew on board at night, at the last moment, 



6Q IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

comfortably drunk, counting them as received, 
and bundling them into their berths in the 
forecastle, to sleep off the fumes of their de- 
bauch. And by the next morning, when the 
ship would be down the river at the Belize, 
the tugboat was cast off, and then, and not 
until then, would the ship's crew be needed to 
make sail and clear up the decks for sea. 

It was the duty of the junior officer to re- 
ceive and count the men as they came on 
board ship in every stage of intoxication. 
Some were brought over the gangway, abso- 
lutely heli)less, by two stalwart runners ; and 
when the ship's quota had been duly delivered 
in the forecastle the shijiping and boarding- 
house masters received a month's advance pay 
for each man. 

Whatever else might be said against this 
system, it certainly had the merit of simplicity ; 
for as the voyage to Liverpool rarely exceeded 
thirty or thirty-five days, it was quite custom- 
ary for the men to " jimij) the ship " in Liver- 
pool as soon as she was docked, and, having 
little or no wages due them, they were cared 
for by another set of boarding-house sharks, 
who kept them during a very brief carouse in 



A ''SHANGHAEING" EPISODE G7 

the " Sailor's Paradise," as Liverpool was 
then called, and then quietly bundled them on 
board of another ship, bagging their advance 
pay, after the fashion of their New Orleans 
brothers in iniquity. 

All this, however, is but the prelude to my 
little story. That Christmas eve in 1845 I, 
as second mate, stood at the starboard gang- 
way of the old Bombay, crammed to her up- 
per deck beams with cotton, and with a deck 
load beside, and had checked off thirteen men 
drunk and semi-drunk, as they came on board 
in squads of two and three. 

"Now then, Mr. Kelson," said the chief 
mate, as he came up from the cabin, " have we 
got these men all aboard yet? " 

"Only thirteen yet, Mr. Ackley," I re- 
sponded, looking at my list by the light of the 
lantern hanging in the main rigging. " But 
here comes the shipping-master, sir." 

" Where in thunder is that other man, 
Thompson ? " said the mate. " The old man 
is as savage as a meat-axe down in the cabin, 
and you had better not see him till we have 
got our full complement on board.'' 

" Oh, that's all right, Mr. Ackley," replied 



68 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

the shipping-master. " Here 's Dago Joe, now, 
coming with his man. Well, Joe, you almost 
missed your chance. They are just ready to 
cast off the breast lines. What have you got 
in your handcart?" 

" Oh, Mis' Thompson, he reglar ole' shell- 
back, he is. He boad wid me six week. 
Came here bossun of de Susan Drew. You '11 
'member dis feller soon 's you see him. He 
say he won't ship less'n sixteen dollar mont'. 
Dat 's de advance I giv' him, 'cos I know Mis' 
Ackley like good sailor man." 

'' Why, he looks as though he were dead," 
said I, peering at the prone body in the cart. 

" Who, he? Oh no, sir ; he been takin' lil' 
drop too much dis evenin', but he be ol' right 
'fore mawnin'. Oh, he sober fust-class sailor 
man. 'Sure you of dat, Mis' Ackley ! " 

At this moment our towboat gave an impa- 
tient whistle, and Captain Gay came up from 
the cabin, two steps at a time. 

" Mr. Ackley, what are we waiting for ? 
The tow has been made up for an hour, and 
we ought to have been a dozen miles down the 
river by this time I " 

"The last man has just come on board, sir," 



A '^SHANGHAEING" EPISODE 69 

replied tlie mate, " and I shall cast off at 
once." 

" Be sharp about it then, sir ! " 

"• Aye, aye, sir. Go forward, Mr. Kelson, 
and see to those head lines ; take the cook, 
steward, and carpenter with you to haul them 
in. You, Joe, tumble that man of yours into 
the forecastle and get ashore yourself, or you '11 
have a chance to take a trip down to the 
Southwest Pass ! Let go the breast lines ! 
Stand by forward ! " 

We cast off, the tugboat steamed ahead, 
the strong current struck iis on the starboard 
bow, we slowly turned, and went on our way 
down the river, leaving the long line of twin- 
kling lights of the Crescent City behind us. 

The next morning at daylight the chief 
mate and I, after serious difficulties, succeeded 
in '' rousing out " our befuddled crew, and then 
commenced clearing up decks and getting 
ready for making sail, for we were nearly 
abreast of Pilot Town, and would soon be over 
the bar. 

Thirteen hard-looking subjects presented 
themselves from the forecastle, after some 
little time, but where was the fourteenth ? A 



70 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

diligent search of the men's quarters was at 
last rewarded by the discovery of the missing 
man — but such a man ! A wretched-looking:, 
frowsy-headed little creature, bandy-legged 
and narrow chested, a most unmistakable lands- 
man, dressed in thin, blue cottonade trousers 
with a long-skirted, threadbare alpaca coat, 
buttoned over a calico shirt ; with no waistcoat, 
or hat, and with well-worn lasting shoes on his 
feet. Trembling, blear-eyed, wild with evident 
astonishment at his surroundings, this unfor- 
tunate wretch was haled up before the mate by 
the carpenter, who had found him still asleep 
under one of the berths, hidden behind a 
large sea chest. 

" Who the devil are you? " said Mr. Ackley 
roughly, looking contemptuously at the man, 
shivering in the chill of the early morning. 

" Vere you vos takin' me ? " inconsequently 
replied the man, staring about him. " I want 
to go by my home. Lisbeth must ogspect me. 
Please stop the boat, lieber Herr ; I must go 
home!" 

" He 's got 'em bad, sir," said the carj^enter ; 
"that New Orleans whiskey is mean stuff, sure. 
He 's got the 'trimmins, sir ! " 



A "SHANGHAEING'' EPISODE 71 

" Who shipped you, you measly dog ? " 
shouted the mate, paying no attention to the 
carpenter. '' Come, speak up, or I '11 lather 
the hide off of you! Who shipped you I 
say ? " raising a rope in a threatening manner. 

" Please, goot gentleman, don't strike me ! 
I vant to go home. Lisbeth must ogspect 
me long ago. Why did you bring me here, 
goot gentleman ? " 

" I '11 ' goot gentleman ' you ! Here, Chips, 
take this fellow and put him under the head 
pump. Freshen him up a bit, and then I '11 
warm him with a rope's end and see if I can't 
get some sense into him ! " 

The carpenter and one of the crew dragged 
the struggling man forward, and held him 
while one of the boys, delighted at the oppor- 
tunity, pumped the cold river water over 
the poor creature, whose screams were drowned 
in the rough merriment of the sailors. 

I look back at this scene now, as I record 
it, and at many others, even worse, that fol- 
lowed during the next month, and wonder if 
we were all — officers and men — brutes, in 
" those fine old days " of the Black Ball liners 
and the Liverpool trade I 



72 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

Poor Sliaiig — tliat was the name that fell 
to him in playful allusion to the fact that he 
had been made a victim to the " Shanghaeing " 
process, as it was called — had been drugged 
and brought on board helpless by Dago Joe 
to make up our full complement. 

When we came to choose watches that even- 
ing Shang fell to me ; he was left until the 
last, and Mr. Achley said, " Well, Mr. Kelson, 
you allowed Joe to bring this duffer on board, 
and it 's only fair that you should take him in 
your watch, /don't want him ! " 

Shang, as I found out by questioning him, 
had gone out that Christmas Eve in New Or- 
leans to buy a few little presents for their 
Christmas-tree. He was a poor journeyman 
tailor, a German who had come to this coun- 
try from his native village of Pyrmont, sev- 
eral years ago, had married a fellow-country- 
woman, Lisbeth, and they had one child, — a 
crippled girl, Greta, — whom the little man 
loved with his whole heart ; and for her he 
had gone out to purchase something with his 
scanty, hard-earned wages, paid him that day. 

He had stepped into a beer saloon for " ein 
glas hicr,''^ as he said, had drunk it, felt 



A '' SHANGHAEING'' EPISODE To 

drowsy, and — " Gott in Himmel, gnadiger 
Herr, nothing more know I more till I find 
myself in this strange ship ! When think yon, 
sir, we will get there — where we go — is it 
perhaps far? " 

When I told poor Shang the real facts of 
the case, and that it would be months before 
he could again see his Lisbeth and Greta, 
the poor fellow was dumb with horror, and 
I almost feared he would make away with 
himself. 

I did the best I could to make life endurable 
for the poor wretch. An old thick suit of 
mine he deftly made over for himseK, and 
some of his shipmates helped him out with a 
few other clothes. But, even with the best 
intention, I could not make a sailor of poor 
Shang, — it was not in him, for he was a most 
helpless lubber, — and that was the misery 
of it. 

He had been shipped and entered on our 
ship's articles as an able seaman, and Joe had 
received sixteen dollars of monthly wages on 
his account. Our crew was short, at best, the 
winter voyage was a stormy one, and poor 
Shang could not be favored. 



74 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

Mr. Ackley seemed to have taken an uncon- 
querable dislike to the man from the first, and 
led him a dog's life, beating him unmercifully 
several times for his shortcomings. Aloft he 
must go, though he clung helplessly to the rat- 
lines in an agony of terror. 

" You alone are goot to me, lieber Herr," 
said the poor fellow. " I know you cannot 
help me more, but how can I live it ? I know 
that I shall perish before we get there ! Ach, 
lieber Gott, vot become of my lieblinge ! Aber 
des Himmels Wege ; sind des Himmels 
Wege ! " 

At last the long voyage was nearly at an 
end. Cape Clear was in sight one night as I 
came up to take the watch at midnight, and a 
very pleasant sight it was to all of us. There 
was a stiff all-sail breeze from the southward, 
and we were laying our course fairly up chan- 
nel. I was looking over the quarter-rail at the 
light, now well abeam, as Shang came aft and 
drew near me. 

" Is it then true, mein Herr, as they say, 
that we are almost there ? " 

" Yes, Shang, we are now almost there. If 
this breeze holds we will be in Liverpool day 



A ''SHANGHAEING'' EPISODE 15 

after to-morrow. And then," I added, as I 
saw how anxiously he listened to me, " you can 
ship as a landsman, perhaps, and get back to 
Lisbeth and little Greta." 

'' Gott sei dank," he murmured, as he rev- 
erently lifted his hat, '' if they have but live 
all this time." 

I endeavored to reassure the poor fellow, 
and then, as the breeze was freshening, I took 
in the topgallant sails, and later, finding the 
wind still increasing, called Captain Gay, 
who ordered all hands called and a single reef 
put in the topsails. 

The watch below tumbled up, the yards 
were clewed down, reef-tackles hauled out, and 
both watches went aloft to the fore-topsail. As 
my station as second mate was at the weather 
earing, I was, of course, first aloft, and had 
just passed my earing and sung out, "Haul 
out to leeward," when I notice:!, to my great 
surprise, that the man next inside of me on 
the yard was Shang, v/ho usually on such occa- 
sions was discreetly found in the bunt. 

''Why, Shang," said I, ''you are really 
getting to be a sailor." 

" Ach, mein Herr," said he cheerfully, " ich 



76 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

bin so gliicklicli und so fr(51icli, now that I am 
really so near there and that I shall so soon 
see Lisbeth" — 

A strong gust of wmd struck us ; there was 
a vicious slat of the sail that sent the heavy 
canvas over our heads ; the ship made a des- 
perate roll and a plunge into the rising sea, 
and then, as we all clung closely for our lives, 
the sail bellied out and filled again, — but the 
man next me was gone from the yard I 

In the pitchy darkness of the moonless night 
he had fallen into the sea, and without a cry 
he was swept into eternity. 

Poor Shang's earthly troubles were forever 
ended ! 



CHAPTER VI 

TO CALIFORNIA BEFORE THE GOLD DISCOVERY 

In 1846, while the Mexican War was in 
progress, it was decided by President Polk, 
acting upon the advice of Secretary o£ the 
Navy George Bancroft, to send a volunteer 
regiment around Cape Horn to California 
for the occupation of that country, then a 
province of Mexico. In pursuance of this 
scheme a commission as colonel was sriven to 
a Mr. Thomas Stevenson, a well-known New 
York politician and a stanch Democrat, and 
he was authorized to raise and equip a full 
regiment of one thousand men, to be known 
as the First Regiment of California Volunteers. 

It was found that three ships would be 
required to transport the regiment with its 
commissary stores and ammunition ; and the 
Thomas H. Perkins, of which I was at the 
time second mate, was one of the three vessels 
chartered for the purpose. Accordingly we 



78 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

hauled into a berth at the Brooklyn Navy Yard 
in September, 1846, and commenced taking in 
a cargo of military stores in the lower hold, 
while the between decks were fitted up with 
berths to accommodate three hundred and fifty 
men. 

Having completed this work, we were towed 
into the East River, and there three full com- 
panies, H, I, and K, with a portion of Company 
F, were sent on board from their camps on 
Governor's Island. We were also notified 
that Colonel Stevenson and his headquarters 
staff would take up their quarters on board 
our ship for the voyage out, which gave us the 
distinction of being the flagship. 

The men of the regiment were a tough lot 
of fellows. " Stevenson's Lambs," as they 
had been nicknamed, were recruited in and 
about the Five Points and the worst purlieus 
of the notorious Fourth Ward, and from the 
very first they gave their officers no end of 
trouble. 

The officers, moreover, were but a shade 
better ; for with the exception of the colonel's 
son, Captain Matthew Stevenson, who was 
a West Pointer, and the staff officers, wlio 



TO CALIFORNIA 79 

were of the better class, the great majority of 
the company officers were mere ward politi- 
cians, elected by their men to their positions, 
and having little idea of military discipline. 

The colonel had to come on board secretly 
at night to avoid arrest for debt, and one ener- 
getic deputy sheriff actually chased us down 
the harbor in an ineffectual attempt to serve a 
writ upon this impecunious officer. 

We sailed, after many delays, very suddenly 
at last, under imperative orders from Washing- 
ton, on the last day of September, in company 
with the ships Loo Choo and Susan Drew, 
carrying the remainder of the regiment, and 
all of us under the convoy of the United States 
sloop-of-war Preble. As she was a very dull 
sailer, however, we never saw her after the 
first day, as we ran her out of sight that 
night. 

We had a pleasant run down to Rio Janeiro, 
where we put in for water and fresh provisions. 
Here one of the wild freaks of the Lambs was 
displayed. 

Captain Lippitt, of Company K, was, in 
contrast to the other officers, quite a discijDlin- 
arian. He was not a New Yorker, but came 



80 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

from Vermont, where he had superintended a 
military school ; and neither of these facts com- 
mended him to the consideration of his men, 
with whom he was very unpopular. His com- 
pany had abused their uniforms shamefully 
during the voyage, and had been especially 
careless in losing their dress hats overboard. 

These hats were not so comfortable as the 
fatigue caps, and there was little doubt that, 
in many instances, the men lost the hats with 
intent. In preparation for making a suitable 
appearance in Rio, Captain Lippitt had found 
a couple of hatters in the regiment, and with 
infinite labor had managed to have ninety new 
dress hats made for his company, and they had 
been served out a few days before we made 
the land. He took great pride in the success 
of this effort, and bragged in a mild manner 
t^ his brother officers of the fine appearance 
his men would make. 

The day we entered the bay of Rio the 
entire company appeared on deck in their new 
headgear, rather to the surprise of the captain, 
who had not given orders for full dress ; but, 
attributing it to a desire on the part of his men 
to appear well, he made no comment. 



TO CALIFORNIA 81 

As we passed under the walls of the fort 
which guards the entrance to the bay, where 
all ships are hailed as they come in, Company 
K at a concerted signal sprang into the rig- 
ging or upon the rail, and, giving three wild 
cheers, every man threw his new hat overboard ! 

The Bay of Rio de Janeiro was alive with 
nearly one hundred military hats bobbing about 
in a most absurd manner, while the walls of 
the fort were at once crowded with Brazilian 
soldiers attracted by this most astonishing 
performance. 

Captain Lippitt was speechless with rage 
and amazement, the colonel and the other 
officers could not restraii> their laughter ; and 
as they could not very well punish an entire 
company for a bit of fun, the matter was 
allowed to pass with a reprimand and a stop- 
page of the value of the hats from the men's 
j)ay. But Caj)tain Lippitt was not permitted 
to hear the last of the " battle of the hats " for 
the remainder of the voyage. 

In Rio the three ships of our fleet met for 
the first time since we had parted company after 
leaving New York. One company of the regi- 
ment from each ship was given liberty on shore 



82 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

daily, and the Brazilian police probably never 
bad sucli severe duty before in their lives. 
Fancy three hundred New York Fourth Ward 
roughs adrift in a quiet foreign city, entirely 
unprepared for their proper reception ! 

It was little wonder that at last a formal 
protest was entered with the American Minis- 
ter, Mr. Wise, against the depredations of 
these reckless fellows, and a request was made 
that no more shore liberty be granted them. 
It was doubtless an immense relief to the 
authorities, who afforded us every facility for 
expediting our work, when the supplies were 
all on board and they had seen the last of the 
" Soldados Norte A7ne7ncanos.''^ 

We parted company with our consorts with 
the understanding that we should rendezvous 
at Valparaiso. Off the Rio de la Plata we 
had a very heavy blow, but after that enjoyed 
unusually pleasant weather until we got into 
the latitude of Cape Horn, where, although it 
was December, which is smnmer at the antipo- 
des, we encountered a succession of severe gales 
from the northwest, right in our teeth, which 
drove us far to the southward, and against 
which we could make no headway. 



TO CALIFORNIA 83 

On Christmas Day we were in latitude 60° 
05' S. The cold was intense, it was blowing 
heavily, and we were plunging into a headbeat 
sea, close on the wind, under double reefs, 
when the thrilling cry, " Man overboard ! " 
was heard. The ship was at once hove to, 
every one rushed on deck, and there, on the 
weather quarter, the figure of a man was seen 
rising and falling on the crest of the dark 
green waves. Fortunately as he passed astern 
some one had thrown an empty chicken coop 
overboard, which, drifting near him, he had 
managed to get hold of, and to this he was 
clinging for dear life. 

Captain Arthur at once called for volunteers 
for the whaleboat, which swung on the port 
quarter, and a good crew was speedily selected. 
I was put in charge, and, watching a favorable 
opportunity, she was partially lowered, with us 
seated in her, and then the falls were let go by 
the run, so that as she struck the water they 
unreeved, for it would have been impossible in 
such a seaway to unhook the blocks. 

We drifted clear of the quarter overhang, 
which was the great danger, and then, directed 
by signals from the ship, pulled in the direction 



84 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

of the unfortunate man, who more than half 
the time was out of sight to us in the boat, as 
he went down in the hollow of the great waves. 

It was severe work forcing the boat through 
the rough water in the very teeth of the gale, 
for the ship had drifted well to leeward of the 
man before we got the boat lowered ; but my 
men gave way with a hearty good will, and we 
at last had the satisfaction of reaching the 
man, who was almost exhausted, as well as 
frozen, and dragging him in, he fell prone in 
the bottom of the boat. 

It was not so difficult to return to the ship, 
as we had the wind astern ; but it was an ex- 
ceedingly delicate and dangerous operation to 
hook on and hoist the boat in, and we were 
nearly swamped in doing it. 

Loud cheers greeted us from more than three 
hundred throats as we came alongside, and the 
boat falls were stretched out and manned by 
all the men that could get hold of the ropes. 
The surgeon of the regiment was at hand, and 
poured nearly a gill of raw brandy down the 
man's throat, and he was taken below, wrapped 
in a blanket, and thoroughly rubbed until the 
suspended circulation was once more restored. 



TO CALIFORNIA 85 

The next day he was up and about the decks 
again, very thankful for his escape from a 
great periL 

Within twenty-four hours the wind veered 
around to the southward, and we soon passed 
the Horn and ran up into the South Pacific, 
exchan^rinof the Antarctic ice for the hkie skies 
and summer weather of the tropics. In a cou- 
j)le of weeks we reached Valparaiso, where we 
remained until, a few days later, we were joined 
by our consorts, when profiting by our exjDe- 
rience in Rio Janeiro, but a small number of 
men were permitted to go on shore each day. 

We left Valparaiso January 15, 1847, and, 
after an uneventful run up the coast, sighted 
the Farallones, off the Bay of San Francisco, 
on the 5th of March. 

Then all was excitement ; for we had heard 
nothing of the condition of affairs in Califor- 
nia since leaving New York six months be- 
fore, and we did not know what reception we 
might encounter. 

We stood in past the heads, since known as 
the Golden Gates, and ran up the lower bay, 
when suddenly we saw displayed, from a staff, 
on the Presidio, the American flag, and we then 



86 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

knew that we were among friends. A few 
minutes later we sighted the fleet at anchor, 
with our country's flag flying from the peaks 
of the ships, and we ran up and anchored off 
the little hamlet of Yerba Buena, as what is 
San Francisco was then called, after a voyage 
of one hundred and fifty-five days. 

Commodore Stockton, in the frigate Con- 
gress, was then in command of the naval forces, 
and the sloop -of -war Portsmouth, Captain 
Montgomery, was also in the harbor. A few 
weeks later Commodore McKean came over 
from China in the Razee Independence ; and 
as our two consorts arrived a week after us, 
and General Kearney reached Monterey with 
a force of dragoons, overland, it will be seen 
that the United States was in overpowering 
force in California. 

We discharged our government stores, carry- 
ing them ashore in our boats and landing them 
on the beach near Clark's Point, in the man- 
ner described by Dana in his " Two Years Be- 
fore the Mast ; " for everything was very prim- 
itive at Yerba Buena in those days, and it 
would have required a very vivid imagina- 
tion to conceive that the bay would within a 



ro CALIFORNIA 87 

lifetime be lined with wharves, and that a 
superb city of several hundred thousand in- 
habitants was to replace the cluster of haK a 
dozen adobe houses we saw before us. 

Our cargo out, we took in a sufficient quan- 
tity of sand ballast, and in June sailed for 
Manila. Within a week after getting off the 
coast of California, we struck the southeast 
trades, and had a most delightful run across 
the Pacific Ocean, the wind scarcely varying a 
couple of points for six weeks, when we sighted 
Guam, one of the Ladrone Islands. As scurvy 
had * made its appearance among our crew. 
Captain Arthur decided to anchor and lay in 
a supply of fruit and vegetables. The natives 
soon came off to us with quantities of limes, 
yams, and cocoanuts, which they gladly ex- 
changed for any articles of hardware we could 
spare. 

The following day we got under weigh and 
stood to the westward for the Straits of St. Ber- 
nardino. At midnight breakers were seen close 
on the weather bow. We wore ship instantly to 
the eastward and hauled close on the wind for 
an hour and a quarter, the wind not permitting 
us to lay better than east half south. At 



88 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

1.45 A. M. we tacked to the southward, and 
hoped to weather this reef, which we had not 
found set down on our chart ; but at 3.15 
breakers were again seen on the weather bow 
too near to allow us to tack. We accordingly 
wore, and when before the wind the ship struck 
under the forefoot and remained stationary. 
The wind was S. S. E., and fortunately the 
water was as smooth as a mill-pond. 

We furled all sails, and I was sent by Cap- 
tain Arthur in the cutter to sound around the 
ship. I found the eastern edge of the reef on 
which we lay to be very steep, with shelves 
projecting beyond each other as it deepened. 
These edges were of very sharp and ragged 
coral, descending so rapidly as scarcely to allow 
room to lay an anchor on. 

The reef was about one mile and a quarter 
in length from north to south, and perhaps one 
hundred and fifty yards in breadth from east 
to west, and in the form of a crescent. Its con- 
cave side to the eastward was that on which we 
lay, nearly in the centre, with our bow pointing 
directly over the reef. Under our jib-boom 
there was but five feet of water; under the 
stern eleven feet ; under the fore chains fifteen 



TO CALIFORNIA 89 

feet on the port side and thirty feet on the 
starboard side, and under the main chains four 
fathoms on one side and eight fathoms on the 
other. 

Returning and reporting these facts, Captain 
Arthur had all our boats hoisted out and a 
kedge anchor laid under the port quarter in 
deep water, and a hawser attached to it and 
taken to the capstan and hove taut. The 
stream anchor was next laid on the starboard 
bow and its cable hove taut. All three boats 
were manned and attached to a tow-line from 
the bowsprit end. The jib, spanker, and stay- 
sails were loosed ready for hoisting. 

By eleven o'clock the wind veered to the 
southwest and became squally, the tide began 
to flow and the swell to heave. At 11.30 the 
ship began to move, but just then the hawser 
parted. Captain Arthur immediately ordered 
the boats to pull away about forty-five degrees 
abaft the starboard beam ; the breeze freshened 
and gave a greater impulse to the strain of the 
stream cable, and, to our delight, the ship 
launched off and got sternway, which, the boats 
assisting, swung her around on her heel with 
her head to the northward. 



90 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

" Cut away the stream cable, Mr. Kelson ! " 
shouted the captain, half wild with excite- 
ment. 

The ship swung so as to bring the wind on 
the starboard quarter. 

" Hoist away on the sj^anker, put the helm 
down ! " She came to on the starboard tack. 
"Hoist away jib, main and main-topgallant 
staysails ! Be lively, sir ! " 

Every one bent to the work with a hearty 
good-will ; the good ship gathered headway ; 
the boats came alongside. 

"Aloft, men, and loose topsails and courses ! " 
called out the captain. 

The topsails were mastheaded, and the 
courses set as rapidly as possible, and we just 
shaved the reef, not more than five feet from 
its knife-like edge. Had we struck broadside 
on, it woidd have been the last of the ship, 
and, for the matter of that, of us also. 

Thank God ! we were clear of the reef, 
losing in the effort our stream and kedge 
anchors and a couple of hawsers, which we 
gladly relinquished in our joy at this narrow 
escape from wreck. 

We steered N. N, AV. between two other 



TO CALIFORNIA 91 

long reefs, which broke white as we passed 
them, and at last emerged to clear water, and 
again shaped our course for the straits. A 
week later, we anchored at the mouth of the 
Pasig in the beautiful Bay of Manila. 

The city of Manila, on the island of Luzon, 
is the capital of the Philippine Islands, one 
of the most highly cherished of the Spanish 
possessions. It is the residence of the viceroy, 
who, at this great distance from home, is in 
everything but name a reigning monarch, and, 
indeed, supports almost as much state as his 
royal master in Madrid. 

The bay is superb, almost as fine as that 
of Rio de Janeiro, and the city itself is much 
more curious and interesting to the traveler 
than Rio. The River Pasig divides the city, 
one portion, which is walled, being devoted 
almost exclusively to the palaces of the vice- 
roy and the archbishop, the Hall of Audi- 
ence, the military barracks, and innumerable 
churches and convents. Outside of the walls, 
along the shore of the bay, is the beautiful 
drive, the Calzada, where all the fashionable 
world drive in the cool of the eveninof, while 
the bands play choice selections of operatic 
music. 



92 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

On the other side of the river is the resi- 
dential quarter and the shops. The population 
was then about one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand, of which more than three quarters were 
natives, the ruling class and the aristocracy 
being of Spanish birth. 

One of the many sights in Manila was the 
enormous government cheroot factory, where 
nearly twenty thousand people, mostly women, 
are employed. 

We loaded here with hemp and sugar, which 
we carried home to Boston by the way of the 
Cape of Good Hope, having an uneventful 
passage of one hundred and sixty-five days to 
Boston Light. 



CHAPTER VII 

RECAPTUKING A RUNAWAY 

I DID not long remain as second mate, for 
the very next voyage the chief mate was lost 
overboard one morning from the top of the 
poop-house. The watch were about to set the 
sj)anker, and Mr. Brown, who had the watch, 
was standing very imprudently to leeward of 
the boom, when the last turns of the gasket 
were thrown off and the gaff flying over struck 
him in the head with great violence and 
knocked him over the quarter-rail. 

The ship was at once hove to, and a boat 
was lowered, but nothing was seen of him, and 
the supposition was that he was stunned by 
the blow and sunk at once, to rise no more. 

So I was promoted to his place ; and although 
full young to assume the responsibilities atten- 
dant upon the position, I managed to satisfy the 
captain so well that when we arrived in port 
I was confirmed in the place. About a year 



94 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

later I was sent for to go as chief mate in the 
Laodicea, another ship belonging to the same 
firm. In this vessel I made a voyage to the 
East Indies. 

Early in 1848, while in New York, I re- 
ceived a letter from the owners requesting me 
to come on to Boston and take command of 
the Mystic, a fine new ship of nearly one 
thousand tons, lately launched at East Boston 
and fitting out for a voyage to Valparaiso. 

So my cousin, the owner, had fulfilled his 
promise, and before I was twenty-one years of 
asre I was to have command of a fine half- 
clipper ship. I wasted no time, but went on 
to Boston as speedily as possible, where I 
found my ship at Commercial Wharf and 
work already commenced on her lading. 

I at once assumed the command ; and as the 
owners were very anxious to get the ship to sea 
in the shortest time possible, I pushed things 
to the extent of my ability and secured as 
officers a Mr. King, whom I had known for 
several years as an experienced and thoroughly 
trustworthy man, as chief mate, and a Mr. 
Robinson, whom I did not know personally, 
but who brought me such excellent recommen- 



RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 95 

dations that I engaged him on the strength of 
them, as second mate. That I did not more 
closely examine into the character of this man 
was a very unfortunate oversight, as it after- 
ward proved. 

In due time our cargo was all in, and in ad- 
dition, seventy thousand dollars in Spanish dol- 
lars, packed in kegs, came on board, which was 
to be used on owner's account for the purchase 
of a cargo of copper at Coquimbo. These kegs 
were stowed away under the immediate direc- 
tion of Mr. Robinson, who was in charge of 
the work, well down in the after run. 

As one of the frequent South American rev- 
olutions was then in progress in Chili, my orders 
from the owners were that if I could not get a 
cargo of copper I should go over to China and 
report to Russell & Sturgis, who would invest 
my silver in a cargo of tea for Boston. 

On the 5th of December we were ready for 
sea ; and after clearing at the Custom House 
and receiving my last orders from my owners, 
I went on board and proceeded to sea. 

Our run down to Cape Horn was prosper- 
ous and very uneventful, and we had remark- 
ably fine weather. After passing through the 



96 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

Straits of Le Mar, however, we fell into a 
heavy gale from the westward, and for several 
days laid to under close sail. By the third 
day of the gale the sea was running heavily. 
That day just before noon the clouds lifted, 
and Mr. King sent a boy into the cabin to tell 
me that he thought there would be an oppor- 
tunity to get a meridian altitude. 

As we had not been able to get an observa- 
tion for several days, I hurried on deck with 
my sextant. Just as I had braced myself 
against the port rail, the man at the wheel 
carelessly let the ship yaw, and a great wave 
that must have weighed tons came aboard, 
smashing the starboard quarter boat to flinders, 
dashing in the cabin skylight, and sweeping 
the decks in a terrible manner. 

By great good fortune I had taken a turn 
of a rope about my waist to steady me for get- 
ting a sight ; and by clinging on with both 
hands I managed to retain my position, but 
Mr. King, who was quite near me, was washed 
away and thrown with fearful violence across 
the deck and into the lee scuppers. 

Fortunately no one was washed overboard, 
but on investigation we found that poor Mr. 



RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 97 

King- was seriously injured. Two of his ribs 
were broken, and it was evident that he had 
also received some severe internal injuries, the 
extent of which I could not then determine. 

He was carefully taken below to his state- 
room, and I did all I could to relieve his suf- 
ferings, which were very great. That night 
the wind veered and moderated, and we made 
sail and were soon in the waters of the Pacific, 
standing to the westward with favoring winds 
and smooth seas. 

On the 2d of March, at 9 A. M., we made 
the Point of Angels, and, bearing up for the 
entrance to the Bay of Valparaiso, stood in 
and anchored close to the lower batteries. I 
at once went on shore and rej)orted to the 
Aduaiia, and then made arrangements to have 
Mr. King sent to the hospital. 

Going on board again, I told him what I had 
done and assured him that it would be neces- 
sary to have such careful medical and surgi- 
cal attention as he could receive only in a 
hospital. 

" I am perfectly aware of that. Captain Kel- 
son," said he. " I know that I can't stay here 
on board, and I doubt if I shall ever be much 



98 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

more use as an officer of a ship ; but there is 
one thing I must do before I leave the ship, 
and that is to warn you against putting too 
much trust in Mr. Robinson ! " 

" Why, Mr. King ! what is the matter with 
him ? He is a good sailor, and he appears to 
carry on the duty very well ! " 

" Oh yes, sir, he is a good sailor-man ; no 
one can deny that ; but I don't trust him. He 
has too much palaver with the men. I am sure 
there is something wrong about him. What 
it is, unfortunately, I don't know ; I wish I did. 
But you are a younger man than I am, captain, 
and more confiding in your nature. Now I 
beg of you not to put too much confidence in 
Mr. Eobinson ! " 

I thought it quite possible that this was 
merely prejudice on the part of my mate, in- 
creased by his anxiety at leaving the ship, so 
to ease his mind I said : " Oh, well, Mr. King, 
I will keep my eye on him, and I shall hope 
that you will soon be able to return to duty 
again. Now keep yourself perfectly quiet 
and get well as quickly as possible." 

After sending my mate on shore, I made 
Mr. Robinson, who seemed to be doing very 



RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 99 

well, chief mate temporarily, and put one of 
my best men in charge of the second mate's 
watch. Eno^ao'ino" lio^hters, I then commenced 
discharging my cargo, which, as the goods I 
had happened to be in demand, sold rapidly 
and to excellent advantage. But when it 
came to arranging for my cargo of copper, I 
found that it would be necessary for me to 
make a visit to the capital, Santiago, to confer 
with the authorities in regard to a permit for 
export. 

Accordingly I made arrangements with my 
consignees in Valparaiso to keep an oversight 
on my ship ; and after leaving very strict 
orders with Mr. Robinson in regard to the 
care of the vessel, I started on horseback for 
Santiago. 

With the positive genius for delay that 
characterizes Spanish American officials, I was 
detained at the capital for several weeks, 
badgered about from one department to an- 
other ; but at last I succeeded in obtaining the 
desired permit, and returned to Valparaiso. 

As I dismounted from my horse in the 
courtyard of my hotel, I met my good friend 
Don Jose Altimara. " Ah ! " said he, '• I am 



100 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

glad that yon have returned. All yonr goods 
are sold and well sold. Have you obtained 
your permit to export copper? " 

I told liim of my various trials and final 
success. 

" That is well. But tell me, why have you 
sent your ship away so suddenly ? I fear you 
will have trouble with the authorities, as you 
had no clearance papers." 

" What do you mean ? The Mystic sailed I " 

" I mean," said Don Jose, " that the Mystic 
left this port a week ago at night, and with no 
notice given at the Aduana." 

I did not stop for another word, but hur- 
ried to the mole to convince myself that my 
friend was mistaken, as I was sure he must be. 
Eagerly I scanned the bay, searching for my 
ship, but she was not there ! She was gone ; 
of that there was no manner of doubt. But 
cohere could she have gone? and why should 
Mr. Robinson have taken such a strange 



course 



Beyond the slight suspicion created by the 
vague impressions of Mr. King, I had found no 
reason for doubting the probity of this officer. 
But I was soon to be enlightened ; for as I 



RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 101 

stood gazing out over the bay, a rough-looking 
fellow dressed like a sailor, with a half-healed 
scar running transversely across his face, that 
looked like the mark of a recent knife wound, 
touched me on the shoulder to rouse me from 
my reverie, and said, " Is this Captain Kel- 
son ? " 

" Yes, my man," I replied ; '* what do you 
want of me ? " 

" Well, sir," said he, with a half sneer, " I 
think it 's more than likely you will want 
something of 7ne I " 

" What should I want of you, then ? " 
" Don't you want to find your ship ? " 
" Why, what do you know about her ? " 
'' Well, captain, I know all about her, and 
I am ready to tell you the whole story ; and 
what is more, I '11 help you to find her." 

" I will pay you well for it, my lad, if you 
can indeed do so," I replied eagerly. 

" Well, I don't object to that, but I shall 
do it, not so much for love of you or your 
money, as to get even with Jack Robinson for 
the dirty trick he played me ! " 

" Jack Robinson ! Do you know Mr. Rob- 
inson ? " 



102 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

" Aye do I ! We were shipmates together 
in the old Pahnetto, of Boston, three years ago. 
He didn't have a handle to his name then. 
We were both in the forecastle. You never 
heard of the Palmetto getting into port, did 
you, captain ? " 

" No ; it was supposed that she was lost off 
Cape Horn, with all hands ; she was never 
heard from." 

" No ; and she never will be. When I have 
helped you to find the Mystic and have got 
square with Jack Robinson, perhaps I may 
tell you what became of the Palmetto." 

" Well, never mind about her ; what can 
you tell me about my own ship? " 

"" I '11 tell you, sir, if you will give me time. 
Three weeks ago Jack met me here ashore. I 
had been beach-combing for six months and I 
was dead broke. Jack was flush and paid for 
the aguardiente like a man. One day he said, 
* Look here, Charlie, I 've got a devilish sight 
better lay here than we had with the old Pal- 
metto, and an easier job ; do you want to go 
in with me ? ' Naturally I was ready for any- 
thing that promised well ; and when Jack took 
me on board ship, showed me those kegs down 



RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 103 

in the after run, and told me they were all 
full of silver dollars, I was red hot to get 
hold of them and ready for anything ! " 

"You are frank, at any rate." 

The fellow laughed and continued: "Jack 
told me his plan. It was simple enough. He 
wanted me to pick up half a dozen reckless 
fellows like myself, who could be depended 
upon, and who would join us for a fair price. 
Then, on the first dark night, we would slip 
the cable, put to sea, and carry the Mystic to 
an island we both know of, that has water and 
cocoanuts but no inhabitants, — well, if you 
must know, the same place where we laid the 
old Palmetto's bones, — and then get rid of the 
rest of the crew, according to a clever plan he 
had, and divide the spoil between us two ! " 

" And how comes it, then, that you are here 
and the ship gone ? " 

" That is the deviltry that I am coming to. 
A week ago yesterday we had everything 
ready. I had sent aboard half a dozen fellows 
who were ready for anything that would put a 
handful of doubloons in their pockets. Jack 
told the old crew that you had ordered these 
men shipped to help in loading copper at 



104 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

Coquimbo, and they were pleased at the pros- 
pect of more help in the work. Jack and I 
were ashore for the last time, waiting for night 
to come, so that we could cut the cable and 
run. We had both taken our share of grog, 
but Jack had taken a deal less than I. That 
I had noticed, and it ought to have made me 
suspicious. At eleven o'clock we started from 
the pulqueria for the beach ; but as I turned 
the first corner, Jack dropped a bit behind, 
and at the same moment I felt his knife run- 
ning in between my ribs, and as I turned he 
gave me this slash over the head, and I fell in 
the street with a shout of ' Murder ! ' 

" The patrol came along and Jack scuttled 
off ! Well, sir, I was carried to the hospital, 
where I have been ever since, and I had a 
narrow squeak for it ; but I pulled through at 
last, and now I am ready to pilot you to Ama- 
tavi Island, as soon as you can get something 
to go in, to hunt up your ship ! " 

The fellow's story carried conviction in the 
telling ; it was verified by the police, so far 
as they were concerned, and by old Francisco, 
in whose ^^w/^'ifeWa all the nefarious business 
had been planned. 



RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 105 

My good friend Altimara, to whom I went 
with the strange tale, was now of the great- 
est assistance in various ways. He found, at 
my suggestion, a fast-sailing schooner with a 
good armament, that had lately returned to 
Valparaiso from a smuggling voyage up the 
coast. She could be chartered just as she was, 
manned and all ready for sea, excepting her 
stores. 

I made the round of my customers ; and after 
stating my desperate case, they at once settled 
their various bills for the goods they had pur- 
chased, paying me in silver, in all nearly sixty 
thousand dollars. I then laid in a sufficient 
supply of stores for a voyage of four months ; 
and obtaining the necessary papers for my 
vessel from the government officials, who were 
all very sympathetic, I took Charlie on board 
as pilot, and sailed from Valparaiso with a 
fair wind, on the 6th of May, in search of my 
runaway ship. 

I found my schooner all that I could have 
wished : she was very fast and easily handled ; 
and the crew, which was largely made up of 
runaway men-of-war's men, were familiar with 
the use of the great guns and well drilled in 
small arms. 



106 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

I explained to tliem the object of our voyage 
and what I hoped and expected to accomplish, 
and assured them that if we succeeded in over- 
hauling and capturing the Mystic, they should 
receive one hundred dollars each as prize 
money, in addition to their wages. But I told 
them at the same time that very possibly we 
might have a sharp fight, for I knew Mr. Kob- 
inson was a desperate man and had everything 
at stake. 

The men cheered at the end of my speech, 
and promised to go wherever I led them, and 
I saw that they meant what they said. 

From the description Charlie gave of the 
island where he said Robinson had intended 
taking the Mystic, I found that it laid in lati- 
tude 2° 21' S., longitude 146° 04' E., and that 
it was doubtless one of the Admiralty Islands, 
which were little known to navigators at that 
time. 

We made an excellent run, and at noon on 
June 30 I found by a good observation that 
we were probably about forty miles to the 
southward of the island we were seeking ; and 
as we were then making about seven knots an 
hour, I felt sure we should sight the land be- 



RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 107 

fore nio'lit. The excitement of the chase and 
the preparation for a possible fight had thus 
far kept me up, but now that I was so soon to 
know the result of this attempt I was making 
to recover the property of my owners, and 
should either reinstate myself in their good 
opinion or return to Boston a ruined man, I 
acknowledge for the first time my courage 
almost failed me. 

What if, after all, I should be on the wrong 
track ! This fellow might have deceived me, 
or, in his turn, might have been deceived by 
that craftier villain, my former mate ! How- 
ever, I should soon know the worst — or the 
best! 

By three o'clock we raised the land bear- 
ing N. 31° W., a cluster of low, flat, woody 
islands. By four o'clock a large, high island 
bore N. 18° W., its outline forming a hollow 
like a saddle. It appeared to be surrounded 
with smaller islands on the south and west 
sides. At the same time an extensive reef 
was observed stretching to the southward. 

I decided to haid to windward of the south- 
eastern islet then in sight, and, by Charlie's ad- 
vice, to pass between it and the next island to 



108 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

the northwest, which he recognized, and where 
the channel was to all appearances, perfectly 
clear and about four or five miles wide. 

At 6 P. M. I anchored in six fathoms of 
water about two miles from the land, as I did 
not dare to run in the midst of these reefs at 
night. As soon as the men had eaten their 
supper, I ordered three boats cleared away and 
armed, and with muffled oars we all started 
from the schooner, my boat, with Charlie as 
pilot, ahead. 

The moon did not rise until late, but there 
was sufficient light for us to make t>ur way, 
and, after four hours' steady work at the oars, 
we gained the entrance to a little land-locked 
bay at the head of the channel between the 
two easternmost islands. 

Here we laid on our oars until about three 
o'clock in the morning, and then pulled in 
shore. As we opened up the entrance to the 
bay I almost set up a shout of joy ; for there, 
swinging quietly at her anchor, a cable's length 
from shore, was my old ship ! 

I gathered my three boats together and 
asked my men if they would stand by me in an 
attempt to board the ship. They assured me 



RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 109 

of their readiness, and seemed to look upon the 
whole affair as a good joke. 

I warned them not to fire a shot until we 
were fairly on board, and then to trust mainly 
to their cutlasses : for I felt sure we could sur- 
prise the ship at this early hour when the crew 
would be in their deej)est sleep, and I knew if 
we once succeeded in getting on board, we 
could carry her. 

I divided the boats, giving them orders to 
pull one for the bow, one for the starboard 
quarter, while I would board on the port side 
amidships, thus taking them in flank if there 
should be any resistance. We then j^ulled 
quietly into the little bay, and as the tide was 
running flood, quickly approached the ship. 
As I had anticipated, there was no lookout 
kept, as they evidently fancied themselves en- 
tirely safe from an attack by sea and the 
island was uninhabited. 

We all kept in range until quite near, then 
made a dash alongside, and most of us had 
actually gained the deck before any alarm was 
given. Then it was too late for any organized 
resistance. I shot the first man who came up 
the fore hatch. Charlie cut down another as 



110 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

he appeared from the cabin companionway, 
and we then clapped the hatch bar on the 
fore scuttle, and, after closing the companion- 
way, we had the whole party fast as rats in a 
trap. 

In the first moments of exultation that fol- 
lowed our victory I thought our work was 
practically accomplished, but I soon learned 
that althoug-h I had scotched the snake I had 
not yet killed him. For as I came aft from 
seeing the forward hatch barred down, I was 
saluted by a well-aimed musket shot that 
passed through my hat and grazed my scalp, 
while at the same time another shot from the 
same quarter struck poor Charlie full in the 
chest, bringing him to the deck with a mortal 
wound. 

" Jack Robinson has made a sure thing of 
it with me this time, captain. I saw him as 
he fired from the skylight," whispered the 
poor fellow, as I kneeled down by his side. 
"But I have got even with him. Cap., and I 
brought you here as I promised you I 
would!" 

But the bullets were flying too thick to spend 
much time with a dying man, so I drew him 



RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 111 

forward out of range of the skylight, from 
which they were keeping up a fusillade. As 
the magazine was in the after-cabin the pirates, 
for such of course they were, had the command 
of an unlimited supply of ammunition and 
plenty of arms, and were in a very difficult 
position to dislodge. 

To add to our annoyance they opened fire 
on our boats from the ship's stern windows. 
Indeed, it seemed to be a veritable case of cap- 
turing a Tartar, and for a time I was rather 
nonplussed as to the manner in which I should 
reap the fruit of my incomplete victory. 

The first thing to do was evidently to pro- 
tect ourselves from this galling fire from the 
cabin skylight. So I stationed two men in the 
mizzen rigging with orders to fire down the sky- 
light at any one they could see, and I then sent 
two other men aloft; and after cutting the 
spanker adrift we let the peak and throat hal- 
yards go by the run, and the heavy sail tumbled 
down on the skylight, very effectually shutting 
the occupants of the cabin out from a sight of 
the deck. 

By this time the men who were barred down 
in the forecastle were pleading to be released, 



112 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

shouting out that they surrendered. So we 
opened one side of the hatch and allowed them 
to come out, one at a time, slipping handcuffs 
on each man as he appeared. 

By the time this had been accomplished the 
sun had risen, and we felt the need of some 
breakfast after our all-night work. The cook 
was one of those who came up from the fore- 
castle ; and when he found that his old captain 
was once again in command of the ship, he was 
loud in his expressions of delight. Mr. Robin- 
son, as he said, had led him and the members 
of the old crew a dog's life since he had run 
away with the ship, and moreover they had a 
well-grounded belief that he purposed dealing 
foully with them now that he had got the ship 
safe in this unknown bay. 

The cook bustled about and soon had a 
savory breakfast ready for us of fresh fish, of 
which they had caught an abundance in the 
bay, with hot coffee and ship bread, which we 
thoroughly enjoyed. 

I went with a pot of coffee to poor Charlie, 
thinking he might perhaps take some ; but he 
was already dead, and I covered him up with a 
boat sail and left him at rest. 



RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 113 

After breakfast I sent the cook below as a 
messenger to Mr. Robinson, offering terms for 
his surrender. The fellow was intrenched in 
such a way as to be able to cause us great 
annoyance, so I agreed to give him the ship's 
cutter, with her sails and oars, and provisions for 
himself and the Valparaiso men. I also offered 
to land him and these men on the island un- 
harmed. He was to take no arms with him, 
but I agreed to leave a couple of muskets and 
some ammunition on the reef at the entrance 
of the harbor, where he could get them after 
our departure. 

At first he was disinclined to accept these 
terms and blustered a great deal, threatening 
to blow up the ship, with all of us on board, 
unless I made a more liberal offer ; but I was 
firm and gave him to understand that I did 
not fear his threats and that all the old crew 
had already surrendered at discretion. This 
last news settled the matter, and he consented 
to my terms. 

I then addressed my old crew and gave 
them their choice, either to remain in the ship 
or to go on shore with the mate. They at 
once, to a man, decided to stay by the ship. 



114 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

assuring me that they would be only too glad 
to be rid of Mr. Robinson and his Valparaiso 
beach-combers, who had tyrannized over them 
completely. 

That afternoon, after giving poor Charlie a 
sailor's burial, I got the schooner into the bay 
and alongside the Mystic, and transferred the 
specie from her hold to my ship's run, where 
it was placed by the side of the other treasure, 
which had not yet been tam23ered with. 

I then settled the charges for the schooner, 
paid the men I had hired their prize money, 
and, after thanking them for their brave sup- 
port, we parted company, the schooner stand- 
ing to the southward for the coast of Chili, 
while I laid my course in the Mystic N. N. W. 
for Hongkong. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CHASED BY PIRATES 

We made an excellent run over to China 
after striking into the southeast trades, and 
sixty days after leaving the Admiralty Islands 
we anchored off Hongkong. 

I at once went on shore and reported to 
Eussell & Sturgis, and learned that we had 
arrived in a good time. There were very few 
ships in port, teas were low in price and very 
good in quality, and the consignee said that he 
could secure me some very desirable chops at 
reasonable rates, and that if we had any room 
remaining after investing my owner's silver, 
that he could fill me up with cargo, on freight, 
at remunerative rates. 

This was indeed good news, and I proceeded 
to land my specie, which the firm at once in- 
vested ; and after thoroughly cleaning out and 
fumigating my hold, a quantity of sampan 
wood was sent off for dunnage, and we com- 



116 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

menced receiving and storing' our cargo of 
tea. 

Soon after my arrival I was visited by Cap- 
tain Archer, late in command of the ship 
Essex, of Salem. Captain Archer had lost 
his ship a few months before on a reef while 
trading among the Fiji Islands, and he was 
anxious to obtain a passage home for himself, 
officers, and crew. 

As I was very shorthanded, having lost 
both my mates, Mr. King and Mr. Robinson, 
whose places I had temporarily supplied from 
my crew, I was very glad to ship his two 
officers, and I arranged for his crew to work 
their passage home in the Mystic. I had a 
spare stateroom in the cabin, which I placed 
at the disposal of. Captain Archer. 

He was a veteran shipmaster, and had been 
in command before I was born, but he had 
decided, since his late misfortmie in losing 
his ship, that this should be his last voyage. 
He had had many years' experience in the 
Indian Seas, and particularly in the Fijis, 
where he had traded for beche de mer^ a ma- 
rine delicacy which the Chinese esteemed so 
highly that it was not infrequently sold for 
its weight in silver. 



CHASED BY PIRATES 117 

The captain was full of stories of Thakom- 
bau, the savage chief of Ban, one of the Fiji 
group. This chief was a most terrible old 
cannibal, who, not satisfied with devouring the 
enemies captured in his raids on the neighbor- 
ing islands, frequently ordered the massacre of 
his own people, when he was desirous of having 
a grand feast, and they were baked and eaten. 
"Long pig" he facetiously designated his 
human sacrifices. 

The captain assured me that these dreadful 
orgies were not, as I had supposed, religious 
rites, but were simply for the satisfaction of a 
depraved appetite, and that in the gratification 
of this taste nothing was sacred. 

And yet the captain had succeeded in in- 
spiring a friendship in the breast of this old 
savage that had caused him to issue an edict 
making the captain strictly taboo, and no na- 
tive dared to harm him, while the choicest 
canoe loads of hecJie de mer were brought off 
to him for trade. Thakombau actually pro- 
posed to make Captain Archer a chief and to 
give him the island of Viti for his very own, 
but the captain declined the tempting offer. 

It must be confessed, however, that this 



118 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

gentle treatment had had its effect upon the 
captain, who did not seem to think the canni- 
bal chief was nearly so much of a brute as he 
was generally considered by Europeans. 

I can scarcely realize that since that time 
such a marvelous change has taken place in 
the condition of the Fijians. The missiona- 
ries managed to gain a foothold in the islands 
soon after the time of which I am writing, and 
now there are Christian churches in every is- 
land of the group, several thousand professing 
Christians among the natives, absolute safety 
for white residents everywhere, and cannibal- 
ism is utterly unknown ! 

While the loading of my ship was progress- 
ing, in company with Captain Archer I made 
a visit to Canton, which is about one hun- 
dred miles above Hongkong. This was only a 
couple of years after the siege of Canton by 
the Triad rebels, and the breaches that had 
been made by them in the wall that surrounded 
Canton, six miles in extent, had not yet been 
repaired. 

We passed a week at Eussell & Sturgis's 
hong, and had a very pleasant time exploring 
the curious city under the charge of one of his 



CHASED BY PIRATES 119 

native clerks, who took us into many of the 
labyrinths of the " Old City " not usually pen- 
etrated by the Fanquis, as they called their 
foreign visitors. 

We made many purchases of curios, at 
prices that would now seem marvelously low, 
and returned to Hongkong, at the expiration 
of our visit, loaded down with presents for our 
friends at home. 

Our lading was completed and the hatches 
calked down early in October, and we sailed 
on the 10th of the month, in time to take ad- 
vantage of the northeast monsoon. We were 
favored with light winds from N. N. E. to 
N. E. after passing the Great Ladrone, and 
on the 30th entered Banca Straits, where the 
wind veered to the southeast and fell very 
light. 

At night we anchored ; and as that part of 
the Malayan coast in those days bore an unen- 
viable reputation for pirates, I not only main- 
tained a regular sea watch, but divided the 
time with Captain Archer, so that one of us 
in turn should be on deck all night. And to 
this precaution, as it turned out, we owed our 
subsequent preservation from a great peril. 



120 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

Just before daylight Captain Archer came 
to me, where I was sleeping on the break of 
the poop, and aroused me, saying that there 
were some suspicious looking sails in sight. 

I sprang up, and although it was not yet 
light I could readily see with my night glass 
two proas coming out from under the land a 
few miles to the northward. 

I at once ordered all hands called, and as 
the wind had got round northeast, although 
still light, I immediately got under weigh and 
made all sail. Meanwhile the proas were 
standing down toward us, and as the daylight 
broke it was evident that they were full of men. 

The Mystic, as was quite common in those 
days, carried a couple of 24-pounders, with 
a fair amount of ammunition, and we had, in 
addition to the ship's muskets, the rifles I had 
purchased in fitting out the schooner at Val- 
paraiso, when I started in pursuit of my run- 
away ship. So we were unusually well pre- 
pared in that direction, and, having Captain 
Archer's crew, we were nearly doubly manned. 

Still, so far as force was concerned, we were 
outnumbered by the Malays in the proas five 
to one. For we could see that they fairly 



CHASED BY PIRATES 121 

swarmed with men, and it was evident tliat 
in a hand-to-hand fight we should have much 
the worst of it. It would never do to let 
them get on board of us. 

" We shall have to fight those devils, Kel- 
son," said Captain Archer, " unless the breeze 
freshens pretty quickly. They are gaining on 
us hand over hand ; and they are getting out 
sweeps now, I believe. Yes; by Jove they 
are ! " he exclaimed, looking through his glass. 
" It won't do to let them get alongside ; there 
are two of them, and they will take us on both 
sides and carry us by sheer force of numbers I 
Had n't we better open the ball ? " 

" Yes ; I think that fellow ahead is already 
within safe range. You look out for the ship, 
and I will try my hand at a shot or two. Now, 
sir; luff her \\^ carefully, but don't get her 
aback, and I will bring this gun to bear ! " 

The old gentleman went aft and took his 
stand by the wheel. " Put your helm down, 
my man ; look out, Captain Kelson ! Let draw 
the head sheets ! Meet her with the helm ; 
meet her ! " 

The Mystic came up in the wind, the head 
sails flapped; I watched my chance, got a 



122 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

good sight with the gun, which was loaded 
with a solid shot, and pulled the lock-string ! 

As the smoke blew to leeward I sprang on 
the rail, and as our ship payed off and the 
sails filled, the foremast of the leading proa 
snapped off a few feet above the deck and 
fell overboard with a great crash, dragging 
with it the heavy lateen sail ! 

" Good shot, Kelson ! " shouted Captain Ar- 
cher from the poop ; " that fellow has got 
his hands full of work and is out of the game 
for the present ! " And our men set up a 
hearty cheer at this sudden and unexpected 
discomfiture of our adversary. 

We suj)posed that the other proa would 
heave to and go to the assistance of her com- 
panion, but that evidently was not her inten- 
tion, for she passed her without pausing, 
and with her sweeps out and heavily manned 
she bore rapidly down upon us. 

I ordered the starboard gun run over on the 
port side and tried several shots at the ap- 
proaching proa, but, although I hit her once, 
I did not seem to inflict any very serious dam- 
age, so I had both guns loaded with shrapnel 
and langridge, and determined to have the 
fight out at closer quarters. 



CHASED BY PIRATES 123 

Stationing both my officers and the carpen- 
ter, who was a splendid shot, on the quarter- 
deck with rifles, I ordered them to pick off the 
men who seemed to be the leaders, and then 
waited for the approach of the proa. 

When she had crept up within easy rifle 
range, I luffed the ship up, as before, and get- 
ting a deliberate aim at the crowded deck, 
depressed the guns and fired them at the word, 
both at once, point blank, reloading and re- 
peating the dose before the smoke of the first 
discharge had cleared away. 

The effect of this murderous fire, at such 
close quarters, upon the crowd massed upon 
the proa's deck was terrific, and the slaughter 
was frightful. Yet, by some strange chance, 
the captain, a tall, vicious-looking Malay, 
stripped to the waist and waving a naked 
kreese to encourage his followers, had escaped 
uninjured, and was shouting to his men, to 
rally them, with the evident intent of board- 
ing us. 

Captain Archer had meanwhile filled our 
ship away, but the wind was light, and before 
we had fairly gained headway the proa, with 
sweeps out, shot under our starboard quarter, 



124 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

and a grapnel thrown from lier cauglit in our 
mizzen channels. 

The pirate captain at once sprang forward, 
and, with his kreese in his mouth, scrambled 
up our side, followed by a score of his men, 
and gained the poop deck of the ship ! 

Abandoning our battery, we gathered in the 
waist, and I called to the carpenter to pick off 
the Malay captain. He nodded, and, taking a 
careful sight, fired, and the Malayan fell dead 
among his men. Our other riflemen were 
meanwhile droj^ping those of the proa who 
had followed their captain. 

Just then the wind freshened, and by great 
good fortune the proa's grapnel disengaged it- 
self and she dropped astern. 

Calling upon my men, we made a dash upon 
the few remaining Malays and fairly drove 
them overboard. I then put the helm down, 
and as we came round on the other tack and 
gathered headway, I stood down on the proa, 
a good wrap full, and striking her fair and 
square amidships cut her to the water's edge. 

Our victory was now complete, and as the 
first proa, having disentangled herself from 
the wreck of her foremast, was coming down. 



CHASED BY PIRATES 125 

with sweeps out, to rescue the survivors of her 
consort, I made all sail and kept on my course, 
leaving them to their own devices. 

The next day we fell in with a Dutch man- 
of-war brig, lately out from Batavia. I re- 
ported the affair to her, and she made all sail 
for the straits in hopes of capturing the pirates, 
who, if they were caught, would have received 
a short shrift, for the Dutch were very active 
in the supj^ression of piracy in those waters. 

The 15th of November we passed through 
the Straits of Sunda and laid our course to 
the westward. The wind continued generally 
from the southeast, but it was extremely vari- 
able, and on the 18th it increased to a brisk 
whole sail breeze, attended with showers and 
occasional squalls. 

That night the barometer went down in a 
most astonishing manner and the sea rose with- 
out any seeming cause, for the wind was not 
heavy, while the air was close and the temper- 
ature unusually sultry. 

" What do you think of it. Captain 
Archer ? " said I, as we both looked at the 
barometer in the cabin. 

" I think we are about to have some nasty 



126 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

weather. It would not surj)rise me if we 
caught the tail end of a typhoon." 

" That is exactly my idea, captain, and I 
hope you won't laugh at me when I tell you 
that I am going to take in sail and prepare for 
it!" 

" Not a bit of it, my dear fellow. An ounce 
of prevention may be worth tons of after care. 
With such a low barometer as that, you are 
justified in doing anything for the safety of 
your ship." 

I went on deck at once. " Mr. Ireson," 
said I to the chief mate, " call all hands, send 
down all three of those royal yards, and house 
the masts. Take in the main-topgallant sail, 
close-reef the topsails, and put a reef in both 
the courses. And don't waste any time about 
it, sir. The glass is very low and still falling, 
and I believe that we shall have some heavy 
weather before morning." 

The mate looked rather surprised at these 
orders, but he saw that I was in earnest and 
proceeded to carry them out. The wind soon 
commenced fresheniug, but with our double 
crew the work was speedily accomplished, and 
by the time that all was snug the wind had 



CHASED BY PIRATES 127 

chopped round and came out howling from 
the southward and eastward. In consequence 
of our timely preparation, however, we were 
ready for it. 

The gale continued to increase, and on the 
third day we hove to under close-reefed main- 
topsail and reefed foresail, under which sail 
the ship made good weather, although the sea 
was running very heavily indeed. 

Just before midnight the wind suddenly fell, 
and for a few minutes it was almost calm. It 
was intensely dark, the sky was as black as 
night, not a star was seen through the dense 
clouds, and the sails flapped in an ominous 
manner. 

Then, in a moment, as though all the pow- 
ers of the wind-god had been loosed, the gale 
struck us with infernal force, accompanied 
with torrents of rain and the most vivid chain 
lightning, which played about the ship till it 
seemed as though she must be on fire ; the 
thunder pealing like a park of artillery ! 

The two sails we had set bellied, and with 
one flaj) fairly blew out of the bolt ropes. For 
a moment I thought the ship would surely foun- 
der, for she went almost on her beam ends, 



128 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

trembled like a live thing, and then, relieved 
by the loss of the sails, slowly recovered her- 
self and came up again to the wind. 

I had been in many severe gales in these lati- 
tudes, but I had never experienced anything 
like the tremendous power of this wind : the 
waves were fairly beaten down, which had been 
running half mast high after the three days' 
heavy gale. 

With the aid of a dozen men we succeeded 
with great difficulty in getting a stout tarpau- 
lin in the weather mizzen rigging, and this was 
quite sufficient to keep the ship's head to the 
wind. 

One by one every sail in the ship was blown 
from the yards, although they were furled, and, 
in some cases, storm-furled with extra gaskets. 
But the wind seemed to cut like a knife, and 
we could see by the lightning flashes the long 
ribbons of canvas streaming out and then dis- 
appearing to leeward. Had I not seen this I 
would not have believed it possible. 

All of us, officers and men, were lashed to 
the weather rail, absolutely helpless, so far as 
our own exertions were concerned, and utterly 
unable to communicate with each other, as no 



CHASED BY PIRATES 129 

trumpet could be heard above this wild dis- 
cord of the winds and waves. No man dared 
leave his place lest he should be washed or 
blown overboard. 

At about two o'clock in the morning we 
shipped a heavy sea, and two large, full water 
casks lashed amidships broke adrift and dashed 
from side to side, with every roll of the ship, 
with appalling violence, threatening to stave 
in our bulwarks. 

It seemed certain death for any one to at- 
temjDt to secure these casks, and yet it was 
equally certain they would do us great mis- 
chief if they were permitted to dash about in 
this manner. 

At last one of them became temporarily 
blocked by some spare spars and coils of rope 
in the lee scuppers, and the carpenter, with a 
life-line attached to his waist, succeeded in 
staving in one of the heads of the cask, thus 
rendering it harmless. Watching his oppor- 
tunity when the other cask came over to lee- 
ward, he was equally fortunate and staved it 
also, to our great relief. 

The ship, meanwhile, was laboring very 
heavily, straining and groaning as she pitched 



130 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

and rolled, as helpless as a log in the heavy- 
trough of the sea, and it was evident that her 
seams were opening, as we found on sounding 
the well that there was more than a foot of 
water in the hold. 

" Pray God the gale may break with day- 
light, Kelson," said Captain Archer, who was 
lashed close to me, as he saw the sounding rod 
drawn up from the pumj^s. 

" Yes, sir, the old barkey won't stand many 
more hours of this hammering and twisting. 
If the gale does n't break with daylight I fear 
we shall never see Boston again ! " 

With difficulty I worked my way into the 
cabin, to look at the barometer we had been 
consulting so anxiously all night. It had cer- 
tainly stopped falling! Yes, and better still, 
the surface of the bulb was at last convex ! 
That was at least hopeful. I returned to the 
deck and reported the news to my companion. 

"Yes," said he; "I really believe the wind 
has gone down a bit. It is scarcely jDercepti- 
ble yet, but I think I can notice a slight dif- 
ference for the better. Can't you sound the 
pumps again ? " 

The carpenter again got the sounding rod 



CHASED BY PIRATES 131 

down, and we anxiously watched his face by 
the lio'ht of the lantern as he measured the wet 
place on the iron. 

" The water has only gained a scant inch, 
sir," he reported. 

That was reassuring ; so we waited more 
hopefully for morning, and as the first gray 
light of dawn showed in the east the gale be- 
gan to moderate, and by eight o'clock we were 
able to get about the decks again and commence 
to clear up the wreck. 

We found, on inspection, that all our sails 
were blown away with the exception of the jib 
and main-trysail. In addition, the three top- 
gallant masts had been carried away, the head 
of the mizzen topmast was gone, and the fore 
yard was badly sprung in the slings, while 
the starboard, or lee quarter boat, had been 
washed from the davits. 

Fortunately we had a new suit of sails below, 
that I had been keeping for use in coming on 
our coast in the winter season. These we got 
up and bent ; new topgallant masts were fitted 
and sent aloft from our spare spars ; the fore 
yard was fished, and by night we were standing 
on our course all a-tanto asrain. 



132 IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE 

We passed the Cape of Good Hope a 
couple of weeks later, and on Christmas Day 
we anchored in the roads off the island of St. 
Helena. Here we sent down the fore yard and 
bought a new spar on shore and had the bends 
calked by carpenters, while we overhauled 
and refitted our rigging with the ship's crew. 
This work detained us for a week at the 
island. 

As this was my first visit to St. Helena, I 
made the usual pilgrimage to Longwood and 
to Napoleon's grave. The remains of the great 
Emperor had been removed to France by the 
Prince de Joinville a few years before, in 1840, 
but there were several people on the island 
who remembered him perfectly during his 
residence at Longwood, and it was very inter- 
esting to listen to their stories and personal 
reminiscences of General Bonaparte, as they 
usually called him. 

Our repairs completed, we sailed and had 
a fine run till we came on the coast, when we 
encountered some heavy weather and head 
winds, but at last we got a favorable slant, and 
on Washington's Birthday, February 22, we 
sighted Cape Ann Light, and the following day 



CHASED BY PIRATES 133 

aneliored off Commercial Wliarf after a voyage 
of fifteen months, wMcli liad been full of ad- 
venture and had more than once promised to 
be most disastrous in its outcome. But thanks 
to divine Providence, I had been enabled to 
finish it in safety and with success for myself 
and my employers. 



PART II 
IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 



PAET II 
IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 



CHAPTER I 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR 

In 1859, after seventeen years of almost 
continuous sea service, for during aU that time 
I had never been on shore more than two 
months at any one time, I determined to 
abandon the sea and pass the remainder of 
my life on shore. 

The fact that I had just taken to myself 
a wife was, no doubt, a very potent factor 
in bringing me to this decision, which was 
strengthened by a favorable opportunity being 
presented just then for investing my savings 
in a safe commercial enterprise in Boston. 

So I fell in with it, rented a nice little 
house in a pleasant suburb within sight of the 
gilded dome of the State House, and there 
set up my lares and penates. 



138 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

At first this radical change from the free 
and easy habits of a sea life to the more rigid 
conventional routine of a mercantile career 
rather irked me, but by the end of a year I 
had shaken down into my new r61e, and should 
probably have become reasonably well con- 
tented to pass the remainder of my days in a 
'longshore life, had it not been for the march 
of events, which, in bringing about the up- 
heaval of a nation, sent me off on salt water 
again. 

Early in April, 1861, the North was star- 
tled by the news of the attack upon Fort 
Sumter by the Southern forces, which fol- 
lowed so quickly after the secession of South 
Carolina, and on the 19th of the month the 
excitement in Boston was sent up to fever 
heat by the telegrams announcing the cowardly 
attack upon the Sixth Massachusetts Regi- 
ment by the Baltimore roughs, on its passage 
through that city. 

The youngsters who are living in these 
peaceful days cannot possibly realize the state 
of public feeling in New England at that 
time. Business was practically suspended, 
and the sole thought of the people was to 



OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR 139 

avenge the insult to our flag and the murder 
of our soldier boys. The enrolling officers 
worked day and night, and companies and 
regiments were raised, equipped, and hurried 
to the front with amazing alacrity. 

In common with all my friends and neigh- 
bors, I, too, was full of patriotic zeal, and 
shoidd probably have enlisted in one of the 
numerous regiments forming, had not my at- 
tention been directed to an article in the " Bos- 
ton Transcript " which referred to the great 
number of resignations of Southern naval offi- 
cers that were pouring in on the Navy Depart- 
ment, and expressed a fear that our navy 
would be hopelessly crippled, as the Southern 
officers predominated so greatly in that branch 
of the service. 

This gave me an idea, and I at once called 
upon the late Robert Bennett Forbes, the 
public-spirited merchant and shipowner, whose 
wise counsels in this exigency had been sought 
by Mr. Welles, President Lincoln's newly ap- 
pointed Secretary of the Navy. 

Mr. Forbes was in his private office, deeply 
immersed in his private correspondence, when 
I called, but he courteously listened to me 



140 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

when I asked him why the vacancies in the 
navy could not be filled by the intelligent and 
experienced officers of the mercantile marine. 

'' I have already made such a suggestion to 
the Secretary of the Navy, Captain Kelson," 
said he, " and I have also sent him a list of a 
number of gentlemen whom I consider com- 
petent to fill the position of ' master ' in the 
navy." 

" Mr. Forbes," I responded, " will you not 
include my name in your list? You know 
something of my qualifications, I think." 

With the promptitude that was a very nota- 
ble characteristic of the man, he turned to his 
desk and wrote a brief letter to Mr. Welles, 
which he handed to me unsealed. " Take that 
on to Washington, yourself, Captain Kelson, 
and to supplement it, get half a dozen others 
from Boston shijiowners who know you." 

I did as he suggested, and within twenty- 
four hours was on my way to Washington. 
My interview with the Secretary was brief, 
but to the point. He read all my letters, asked 
me a half dozen pregnant questions, and then, 
writing a few words on a slip of paper, rang 
for a messenger and sent me with him across 



OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR 141 

the corridor to the Bureau of Detail, where 
Captain Charles Henry Davis — afterward 
Rear Admiral Davis — prepared my appoint- 
ment as an Acting Master in the United States 
Navy. 

While the document was sent back to the 
Secretary for his signature I took the oath of 
allegiance, and my orders were at once made 
out to the United States steamer Eichmond. 

Thus quickly was I transformed into an of- 
ficer in the navy and assigned to a shi]), a fact 
I could not realize as I walked down the steps 
of the building, which I had entered less than 
an hour before as a private citizen. But 
events, both public and private, moved quickly 
in those stirring days. 

On my way up Pennsylvania Avenue I 
stopped in at an outfitter's and purchased a 
naval cap, and found an undress blue navy 
flannel blouse which fitted me. Upon the 
shoulders of this garment the tailor attached 
the straps of my grade, and, with trousers to 
match my coat, I returned to the hotel in time 
for dinner, a fidl-fledged officer, rather to the 
surprise of the clerk, who had seen me go out 
a few hours before in citizen's costume. 



142 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

The next morning, in company with a 
friend, I hired a horse and buggy, and, obtain- 
ing a pass, drove over the " long bridge " and 
out about ten miles, to the encampment of 
our army. 

This was but a few weeks before the disas- 
trous battle of Bull Run, but at the time of 
the visit our troops were in high feather and 
felt very confident that the war was to be only 
an affair of a few months ; a mere military 
promenade to Richmond. 

All the officers I met seemed so confident 
of the result that I became half converted to 
their theory, and feared that I had made a 
mistake in going into the navy for such a 
brief period as the war was to continue. The 
real awakening from our dream came sharply 
when these same trooj^s, a month later, were 
pouring into Washington a beaten, disorgan- 
ized rabble ! 

The following day I went on to New York, 
where I found the Richmond at the Brooklyn 
Navy Yard, and, by a most curious coincidence, 
at the very wharf where I had gone on board 
the Bombay nearly twenty years before. 

The Richmond had just arrived from the 



OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR 143 

Mediterranean, whence she had been recalled 
by cablegram. After reporting to the executive 
officer I obtained a week's leave of absence 
and returned to Boston. 

During that brief time I made such ar- 
rangements as were necessary for the comfort 
of my little family and for the proper continu- 
ance of my business, in which there was very 
little doing just then, and at the end of the 
week reported again on board my ship at 
Brooklyn. 

The Richmond was rated as a second-class 
steam sloop-of-war. She was pierced for twen- 
ty-six guns, but mounted twenty-two 9-inch 
Dahlgren guns in broadside. She was almost 
a new vessel, a good stanch ship of her class, 
which included the Hartford, the Brooklyn, 
and the Pensacola. She was rather slow, 
making with favorable conditions about ten 
knots under steam. Before the wind or at 
anchor in a seaway she had a capacity for 
rolling beyond that of any ship I ever saw, be- 
fore or since. Her performances in that direc- 
tion a year later, when we were on the block- 
ade of Mobile, afforded a constant source 
of interest and admiration to the entire fleet, 



144 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

but were exceedingly unsatisfactory to us who 
were compelled to endure them. She was 
commanded by Captain John Pope, and had a 
complement of nearly four hundred officers 
and men. 

I am thus particular in describing her, for 
she was to be my home for the next eventful 
two years. 

Not long after I received my appointment, 
on June 30, 1861, news came to Washington 
of the escape from New Orleans of the Con- 
federate privateer Sumter, under the com- 
mand of Captain Rafael Semmes. 

This steamer, originally the Havana, had 
been fitted out by the Confederate authorities, 
and although the mouth of the Mississippi 
was closely blockaded by the United States 
steamer Brooklyn, with two other ships, 
Semmes watched an opportmiity when the 
Brooklyn was chasing a decoy vessel off shore, 
and dashing out, by her superior S23eed escaped 
our fleet. 

Three days later, she captured and burned 
at sea the ship Golden Rocket, and by July 6 
seven more prizes had been taken by this 
dashing privateer. 



OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR 145 

This, of course, created a tremendous excite- 
ment throughout the country, and our govern- 
ment sent every available ship they had in 
pursuit of her. 

Orders also came to Captain Pope to hasten 
his preparations for sea, and on August 3 we 
sailed under sealed orders, which, when opened 
at sea, proved to be directions to make a thor- 
ough search for thirty days through the West 
India islands for the Sumter, and, failino- to 
fall in with her, to join the West Gulf Squad- 
ron, then commanded by Flag Officer Mervine. 
So we started on what proved to be a wild- 
goose chase, but which gave us an opportunity 
of making a very agreeable cruise, with the 
constant excitement of a possible capture that 
would have brought us no end of glory. 

Among other incidents, we fell in one day 
with the wreck of Her Britannic Majesty's 
ship Driver, piled up on a reef off Mariquana 
Island, with her crew living ashore under 
tents they had improvised from the ship's 
sails. 

We were boarded by her commanding offi- 
cer, who bore the historic name of Horatio 
Nelson. He seemed to be a kind of nautical 



146 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

Mark Tapley, exceedingly jolly under very 
trying circumstances, and perfectly at ease, 
notwithstanding his ship was a total loss. 

In fact, he appeared to look upon that as 
a mere incident of the cruise, and declined 
our offers of assistance, saying he " was all 
right, barring the blasted mosquitoes, don't 
you know ! " He was every day looking for 
the arrival of a British man-of-war to take 
them off, as he had sent a launch down to 
Port Royal for assistance. 

At last, having nearly exhausted our coal, 
we steamed into Port Royal, Jamaica, on 
August 21, to obtain a fresh supply. Here 
we met the Powhatan, Commander David D. 
Porter, homeward bound after an ineffectual 
hunt after the Sumter. 

After coaling, our thirty days having ex- 
pired, we ran down to Key West and the Dry 
Tortugas, and stopping for a day off Pensa- 
cola at Fort Pickens, we received orders from 
the flagship to relieve the Brooklyn off the 
Passes of the Mississippi. 

We anchored off the Pass a L' Outre, Sep- 
tember 13, and soon after, the Brooklyn and 
St. Louis sailed for home, and the Niagara 



OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR 147 

for Pensacola, leaving us with the Vincennes 
and the Preble to blockade the entrance to 
the river. 

A week later, we were joined by the little 
steamer Water Witch, a vessel that had dis- 
tinguished herself some years before in the 
ascent of the river Amazon. We then settled 
down to the monotonous and wearying routine 
duty that was to be our lot for nearly a year 
on this blockade. 



CHAPTER II 

A NIGHT ATTACK BY A CONFEDERATE RAM 

From the time of the Richmond's arrival 
at the Belize we found ourselves the object 
of deep interest to a black, snaky-looking 
steamer that fell into the way of coming down 
the river daily to take a look at us and see 
what we were doing. 

If she had confined her attentions to a mere 
reconnaissance it would not have so much mat- 
tered, but she frequently varied the monotony 
of this proceeding by throwing a rifle shot at 
us from a long range. We soon learned that 
this persistent and pestilent visitor was the 
Confederate steamer Ivy, in charge of Lieu- 
tenant-Commander Fry. 

The Ivy was a converted tugboat, a techni- 
cal term to be understood in a temporal, not a 
spiritual sense. She mounted a rifle gun, evi- 
dently a new acquisition, and she was testing 
it on us. 



NIGHT ATTACK BY A RAM 149 

Fry was a former officer in our service and 
had been shipmates with our executive officer, 
Lieutenant-Commander Cummings, which may 
have accounted for his unremitting efforts to 
make things lively for us. To be sure he never 
succeeded in hitting us, but it is very far from 
amusing to be potted at daily with a 30-pound 
rifle gun, and with no opportunity of returning 
the complmient, as she kept discreetly out of 
the range of our smooth bore Dahlgrens. 

However, after the Water Witch joined 
our fleet, we had a little easier time, as she was 
always signaled to chase whenever the Ivy an- 
noyed us too much. This arrangement was a 
great relief to us, and at least had the merit 
of keeping the Water Witch in a high state of 
efficiency. 

To render the blockade more effectual and 
to obviate the necessity of guarding the three 
mouths of the river, it was at last decided to 
cross the bar and take the ships up to the 
Head of the Passes, some twenty miles above 
our present station. 

At the point where the river branches off, 
forming the Southwest, Northeast, and L'Outre 
passes, it was proposed to erect a battery 



150 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

on shore and there establish a depot, if possi- 
ble, in anticipation of a movement against the 
rebel forts and the city of New Orleans in the 
near future. ' 

To this end we had brought round from 
Fort Pickens, Lieutenant McFarland, United 
States Engineers, to superintend the construc- 
tion of the battery, and we also had on board a 
quantity of sand-bags, pickaxes, and intrench- 
ing tools, but as we found no sand, as there 
was only mud in the vicinity, a schooner was 
ordered to Ship Island for a supply. 

On September 26 the Richmond steamed 
around to the Southwest Pass and endeavored 
to cross the bar, but we grounded and were 
kept hard at work for three days in forcing 
the ship over. At last we succeeded, and an- 
chored off Pilot Town, six miles above. The 
next day we captured a small schooner, the 
Frolic, coming down the river with a Confed- 
erate flag flying, and from her we obtained a 
supply of late New Orleans papers. 

October 1 we ran up to the Head of the 
Passes and anchored, where we were shortly 
joined by the Vincennes and the Preble, both 
old-fashioned sailing ships of war, the little 



NIGHT ATTACK BY A RAM 151 

Water Witch and a merchant schooner carry- 
ing the 8-inch guns for our proiiosecl shore bat- 
tery. 

We had long discussed in the wardroom the 
many advantages of this coveted position in the 
river, as compared with the discomforts of our 
anchorage outside the bar, and now that we 
had achieved it, with nothing to annoy us but 
occasional visits from the Ivy, we settled down 
to the placid enjoyment of our environments. 

In fact we discovered that we even had " so- 
ciety " at our present station. This consisted 
of the family of a precious old scoundrel, half- 
fisherman, half-pirate, I imagine, when oppor- 
tunity presented, who had a wife and a brace 
of buxom daughters. 

In default of anything better presenting it- 
self, some of our younger officers used to visit 
this fellow's cabin, ostensibly to purchase fish 
for their messes, but really with the hope of 
gleaning some information from him as to the 
condition of affairs at the forts above. 

The family always seemed glad to see our 
officers, especially when they brought offerings 
of coffee or tobacco, and, posing as " an origi- 
nal Union family," spun them some very tough 



152 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

yarns. Meanwhile, as we later discovered at 
our cost, they were quietly selling us to their 
rebel friends up the river. 

On October 12 a schooner arrived with 
coal, and the Richmond took her alongside to 
fill her bunkers. During that day we got one 
of our 9-inch guns on the topgallant forecas- 
tle, where it could be given a greater elevation 
than in broadside, hoping thus to increase its 
range for the special benefit of the Ivy on her 
next visit. 

At sundown, as we had not yet taken in our 
full supply of coal. Captain Pope decided to 
continue coaling at night, that we might the 
sooner dispatch the schooner back to Pensa- 
cola for some needed material for the battery, 
— which was fated never to be built. 

That night I was officer of the deck from 
eight to twelve o'clock. When I was relieved 
at midnight we were still coaling, with the 
two guns of the midship division run in on the 
port side to facilitate the work. 

The night was very dark, the moon ]iad set, 
and the mist, hanging low over the river, shut 
in the hulls of the other ships of the fleet near 
us, their masts and sjiars only being visible. 



NIGHT ATTACK BY A RAM 153 

Of course, the Richmond, from her size, must 
have been the most conspicuous object from the 
river, while the noise made in shoveling and 
hoisting the coal marked our position most ad- 
mirably. A more favorable opportunity for a 
night attack could scarcely have been desired. 

But a tired watch officer whose responsibil- 
ities have been turned over to his relief does 
not usually lose much time in reflecting upon 
possibilities ; and I was soon sleeping the sleep 
of the just. For what transpired during the 
next four hours I have to depend upon the re- 
ports of others. 

Master's Mate Gibbs, in charge of the Frolic, 
anchored astern of us, says that at about 3.40 
A. M., seeing a long, black object moving 
stealthily down the river, he hailed, "Eich- 
mond ahoy ! There is a boat coming down the 
river on your port bow ! " 

He says that he repeated the warning, but 
the noise of the coaling probably prevented its 
being heard on board of our shij), as he re- 
ceived no response. 

Commander French of the Preble reports 
that at 3.45 o'clock a midshipman rushed into 
his cabin, exclaiming, " Captain, here is a 



154 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

steamer right alongside of us ! " When Cap- 
tain French reached the deck, he says he " saw 
a ram, that looked like a large whale, steering 
toward us ; but it changed its course to avoid 
us and made directly for the Richmond, and in 
an instant huge clouds of the densest black 
smoke rolled up from the strange vessel and wo 
all expected to see the Richmond blow up ! " 

I, meanwhile, had been soundly sleeping, 
when I was rudely awakened by a tremendous 
shock, followed by the sound of the rattle we 
used as a signal to night quarters. 

Jumping into my trousers, with my coat in 
one hand and my sword in the other, I, with 
the other wardroom officers, rushed on deck, 
fully expecting to find that we were boarded 
by the enemy, — as we very readily might have 
been in this moment of surprise ! 

Emerging from the hatchway, I saw on the 
port side amidships a smokestack just above 
our hammock nettings from which belched 
streams of black smoke ! The vessel, what- 
ever she was, was then slowly dropping 
astern, scraping our side, and at that moment 
she threw up a rocket, doubtless as a signal 
that she had accomplished her work I 



NIGHT ATTACK BY A RAM 155 

I had but a moment to take in the condition 
of affairs, as I found sufficient occupation in 
getting the guns of my division run out. 

Meanwhile, the ram had cleared herself from 
us and drojDped slowly astern in the darkness. 
She soon reappeared again, however, steaming 
up stream as though preparing to give us 
another blow. As she came within range we 
depressed our guns and fired at her as best we 
could in the darkness. But as she was so low 
in the water and the mist was so thick she 
was a most difficult object to distinguish, and 
she soon disappeared. 

By this time the Head of the Passes was in 
a state of tremendous excitement. The sig- 
nal from the ram had been followed by the 
appearance of a line of fire-rafts up the river, 
drifting ominously down upon us, while by 
their light the spars of a bark-rigged vessel, 
and the smokestacks of two other steamers, 
could be seen in their rear. It was evidently 
a well planned attack in force. 

Our little fleet, meanwhile, had all slipped 
their cables, and the Preble came standing 
across our stern under sail, her commander 
hailing: '' What are my orders, sir?" 



156 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

This was the critical point of the whole 
affair. Of course, it is very easy to say now 
what the orders should have been. But just 
at that moment things looked very squally for 
us. We had a hole five inches in diameter 
knocked clean through us and tliree planks 
were stove in two feet below the water line. 

This was the result of the first blow from a 
ram that might, for all we knew, at any mo- 
ment repeat her blow and send us to the bot- 
tom of the river. We had no idea then that 
she had disabled herself in her first essay, 
as proved to be the case, and might readily 
have been captured by us when daylight 
came. 

We did know, however, that with the Rich- 
mond out of the way, our two sailing consorts 
in that swift - running river would prove an 
easy prey to the rebel steamers. , 

Oh no ; it was not an easy question to 
decide in a moment. Farragut, as we all know, 
when in a tight place in Mobile bay, a year 
later, and the ship ahead of him answered his 
question why she had stopped with a reply, 
" Torpedoes ahead ! " sang out : " Torpedoes 
be d — d ; go ahead full speed ! " But unfor- 



NIGHT ATTACK BY A RAM 157 

tunately in our navy in 1861 we did not have 
Farraguts " enough to go 'round." 

After hastily consulting with his executive 
officer, Captain Pope gave the order by night 
signal : " Proceed down the river." 

And down the river we all went, the Preble 
ahead, followed by the Vincennes, and we in 
the Richmond bringing up the rear. Cap- 
tain Winslow of the Water Witch appears to 
have understood our signal as, " Act at discre- 
tion ; " as he reports that he steamed over to 
the other side of the river, then northerly, eas- 
ily clearing the fire-rafts, which drifted harm- 
lessly ashore. At 5.30 a. m. he says " he made 
out our fleet three or four miles down the river 
and no enemy in sight above ; although he 
could see the smoke of three or four steamers 
four or five miles up the river." He then 
steamed down after us, picking up the Frolic 
on the way. 

At early daylight I was directed by the cap- 
tain to go up to the mizzen topmast crosstrees 
and report what was in sight. I found the 
Water Witch and Frolic steaming down to 
us, and far up the river I could distinguish the 
smoke of the Confederate steamers. 



158 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

We soon came to the bar, and the Preble 
passed over safely, the Vincennes followed, 
but struck the bar with her stern up stream, 
and we came last and also took the bottom, 
fortunately swinging broadside up stream. 

Meanwhile, with the daylight, the Ivy, the 
McCrea, and another rebel steamer came 
down, and, keeping at a very safe distance 
commenced their old game of firing at us 
at long range. It was very evident that they 
had a wholesome objection to our 9-inch guns 
at closer quarters. 

Their shells passed over us and fell near us, 
but only one, a spent shell, came in through 
an after port, but fortunately it failed to ex- 
plode, and Lieutenant Edward Terry calmly 
picked it up and threw it overboard. 

The usual signal, " Chase the enemy," was 
made to the Water Witch, and like a bantam 
rooster she steamed up toward the two steam- 
ers, and they withdrew out of range. 

We now piped to breakfast, and made a 
signal to two coal ships anchored outside the 
bar to " get under weigh." I was officer of 
the deck at the time, and, to my surprise, the 
quartermaster came to me at 9.30 and re- 



NIGHT ATTACK BY A RAM 159 

ported, " The Vincennes is being abandoned 
by her crew, sir ! " 
" Abandoned ! What do you mean, Knight? " 

" They are filling up her boats, sir, as fast 
as they can. Just look for yourself, sir ! " 

I hurried aft, as she lay somewhat on our 
port quarter, not more than three hundred 
yards distant, and sure enough, her boats were 
at her gangway and were being filled with men. 

I sent the orderly down to report the matter 
to Captain Pope, and in a few moments the 
first boat reached us, and I received Caj^tain 
Robert Handy, who came over the side with a 
very anxious face, and with a large American 
flag tied about his waist. 

As he met Captain Pope he said : "In 
obedience to your signal, sir, I have aban- 
doned my ship, leaving a slow match, connected 
with the magazine, burning ! " 

I shall never forget the expression of poor 
old Captain Pope's face as he listened to this 
astonishing report. He was anything but a 
profane man in his daily habit, and I am sure 
that the Recording Angel dropped a tear over 
the swear words with which our commander 
emphasized his reply. 



160 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

Meanwhile the imj^ortant consideration in 
our minds was, how long that " slow match " 
might be expected to burn, and what effect the 
explosion of all the powder on board the Vin- 
cennes might have upon us, — perilously close 
neighbors as we unfortunately were. 

By some fortunate chance, however, the 
match went out, and after waiting a proper 
time Caj)tain Handy and his crew were sent 
back to their ship, one of her officers being 
detached, and sent in the Frolic to Barrataria, 
to bring the South Carolina to our assistance. 

At 1 p. M. a steamer was seen coming out 
of Pass a L'Outre which proved to be the 
transport McClellan from Fort Pickens. She 
had supplies for us, and, best of all, our long- 
desired Parrott rifle gun, and had actually been 
almost up to the Head of the Passes in search 
of us. 

It was a miracle that she had not been cap- 
tured by the Confederates. Late that night 
the South Carolina, Captain James Alden, 
arrived. 

Our Comedy of Errors is nearly ended. 
The following morning, with the aid of the 
two steamers, our fleet was all got afloat. All 



NIGHT ATTACK BY A RAM IGl 

was saved but our lionor, and tliat we felt very 
anxious about, for as the news of our affair 
got around to Pensacola, tlie other ships 
seemed to think we had made too good time 
down the river, and they spoke of our brush 
as " Pope's Eun." 

The outcome of this was that our ship sent 
a sjiecial request to be allowed to join in the 
coming attack upon Fort McCrea at Pensa- 
cola. Our request was granted and we joined 
with the Niagara on November 24 in that 
fight. 

We were the inside ship, were struck several 
times, and had several killed and wounded. 
This made us all feel better, and during the 
next two years the Richmond was in all of 
Farragut's fights. She was at New Orleans, 
twice passed the batteries at Vicksburg, was at 
Port Hudson, with a battery of our guns on 
shore during the siege, and was finally in the 
glorious Mobile fight. So that the Richmond 
made a record that placed her among the his- 
toric ships of the navy. 



CHAPTER III 

THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS AND THE CAP- 
TURE OF NEW ORLEANS 

Early in March, 1862, while the Richmond 
was at Ship Island, where ten thousand troops 
had been brought together. Captain David 
Glasgow Farragut came out from New York 
in the United States steamship Hartford and 
took command of the West Gulf Squadron. 

On the 20th of the month Major-Gen- 
eral Benjamin F. Butler and his staff arrived 
at Ship Island, in the transport steamer Mis- 
sissippi, and on the 25th the fourteen hun- 
dred troops on board of her were landed, and 
General Butler established his headquarters 
on shore. 

Meanwhile from day to day, the vessels 
comprising Captain David D. Porter's fleet of 
twenty-one bomb schooners were dropping in 
and anchoring in our vicinity, adding to the 
formidable appearance of the preparations 



THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS 163 

iivO'v being actively made for the coming attack 
upon New Orleans by tlie army and navy. 

There was at last no doubt that we were 
going at our work in good earnest, and al- 
though in the New Orleans papers, of which 
we occasionally obtained copies, the most 
exaggerated accounts were given of all that 
they were doing " to welcome the invaders 
to hospitable graves," we of the navy were 
anxious to bring the matter to the test of bat- 
tle as quickly as possible. 

Of certain facts we were assured. We well 
knew that Forts Jackson and St. Philip 
mounted one hundred and twenty-eight heavy 
guns ; that they were admirably situated in a 
bend of the river where it is but half a mile 
wide, and were calculated with their cross fire 
to repel a foe ascending the Mississippi against 
the current, which in the spring runs with 
great rapidity. We also knew that one, if not 
two heavy chains had lately been stretched 
across the river at this j^oint ; and we of the 
Kiclmiond knew, from our own experience, 
that the rebels had at least one iron-plated 
ram capable of knocking a hole through any of 
the wooden vessels of our fleet. 



164 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

Such of us as liad read the history of the 
war of 1812 were also aware that the British 
fleet in 1815 ineffectually threw over one 
thousand 13-inch bombs — exactly such as 
we were now preparing to use — into Fort 
Jackson during a nine days' siege of that 
work, which was then vastly inferior in 
strength to the present fort, and was the only 
defense of the river, where there were now 
two forts. 

These facts we knew, but we were also in- 
formed by such deserters as came in to us, and 
also by the New Orleans papers, that a line of 
fortifications had been constructed all the way 
from the Forts to English Turn, just below 
the city, and also that two very large and very 
formidable iron -clad floating batteries were 
just being completed, to aid in making New Or- 
leans impregnable against any force we could 
bring to bear upon it. 

Against all this known and unknown force 
we had, under command of General Butler, 
fifteen thousand troops, most of them as yet 
untried in battle, and forty-seven vessels of 
war, — all wooden ships, — of which the Hart- 
ford, Richmond, Brooklyn, and Pensacola were 



THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS 165 

the largest and heaviest armed ships, while 
seventeen of them were small gunboats of the 
Kennebec and Katahdin class, three were okl- 
fashioned sailing vessels, of no particular value 
for the desired service, and twenty-one were 
mortar schooners, carrying one 13-inch mortar 
each, which threw shells weighing two hundred 
and fifteen pounds. 

With this force Flag Officer Farragut was 
expected to accomplish a feat which up to that 
time had never yet been performed successfully, 
— to reduce two forts situated in swamps on 
the banks of a rapid stream, where there 
was no possibility of cooperation by the land 
forces, and then to pass seventy-five miles up a 
river guarded, as we believed, by earthworks 
bristling with guns, to the conquest of a city 
garrisoned by fifty thousand troojDs and de- 
fended by formidable iron-clad batteries ! 

Decidedly this was not to be child's play, 
and although, as I have said, we of the fleet 
were eager for the coming fight, we were 
by no manner of means over-confident of suc- 
cess. 

We were not to meet Indians nor Chinese ; 
our battle was to be set against men whom 



166 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

we respected as foes, and who were quite as 
fertile in plans for defense as we possibly could 
be in our scheme of attack. 

But during the next month, although we 
talked these matters over in the wardroom in 
the evenings, our days were too busily occu- 
pied for such thoughts. The first difficulty 
that confronted us was to get our fleet over 
the bar that jealously guards the delta of the 
Mississippi, and a full month of really hard 
work was required to accomplish this first 
step. 

At last, however, on the 1st of April, all the 
vessels of the fleet were gathered something 
more than two miles below Fort Jackson, the 
bomb schooners moored close in to the right 
bank of the river. 

The coast-survey officers at once went to 
work to establish marks and to construct a 
map for the purpose of getting the bomb ves- 
sels in proper position and in correct range for 
their attack upon the forts, and on the 18th 
of April the regular bombardment opened and 
was continued, almost without intermission, 
imtil our passage of the forts. 

This bomb fire at first, to us of the fleet, 



THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS 167 

was a matter -of constant interest, and the top- 
mast heads — we had sent down our topgallant 
and royal masts in stripping for the fight — 
were thronged with anxious spectators. But 
as no perceptible effect was produced on the 
forts by the bombardment, we soon lost our 
curiosity and came to the conclusion that after 
all this was sim23ly to be the overture, but the 
real work would remain for us to accomplish. 

Meanwhile the enemy were by no means in- 
active, and they soon resorted to one of their 
cherished plans of offense, from which they 
evidently hoped great things. 

One night three enormous fire-rafts ap- 
peared bearing down upon us, blazing high 
with burning pitch and turpentine and send- 
ing out dense clouds of smoke. But for these 
we were prepared with an organized naval fire 
brigade, and before they came dangerously near 
our ships a fleet of boats was sent out with 
grapnels, which they fastened to the rafts and 
then quickly towed them into the middle of 
the river, where they drifted harmlessly past 
the ships, affording us an illumination on a 
grand scale. 

The night of April 20 it was determined to 



168 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

make an attempt to cut the chain cable in 
preparation for our ascent of the river. This 
chain was stretched across the river from a 
point abreast of Fort Jackson to the opposite 
side of the river, where a small land battery 
had been constructed to cover it. The cable 
was supported by passing over a line of seven 
hulks anchored in the river. 

Our plan was to blow up one of these hulks 
by a petard, to be exploded by an electric 
wire, and a " petard-man," one Kroehl, was 
on board the flagship to work the apparatus. 

This delicate and dangerous duty was placed 
in charge of Captain Bell, with the gunboats 
Pinola and Itasea, supported by the Kennebec, 
Winona, and Iroquois. 

It was a wild night selected for the exj^edi- 
tion, dark, rainy, with half a gale of wind blow- 
ins: down the river. But few of us in the fl^et 
went below that night, for we were all im- 
pressed with the importance and danger of the 
work, and we peered out into the darkness as 
the hour of ten drew nigh and the two leading 
vessels steamed noiselessly past us, every light 
concealed and their low hulls only visible by 
the closest observation. 



THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS 169 

To cover tlie attack the bomb schooners 
kept up a terrific and continuous fire upon the 
forts ; five, seven, and once I counted nine of 
these enormous shells, with their trains of fire, 
in the air at the same time. 

Anxiously we waited for the expected ex- 
plosion of the petard, but time passed and no- 
thing was seen or heard of our brave fellows ! 
At last a signal rocket was thrown up from the 
left bank of the river, which was immediately 
answered by one from Fort Jackson, and then 
both forts opened fire. 

Evidently our attack had been discovered. 
But had it failed ? Not a sound came from 
our little fleet ! A half hour lens^thened out 
to an hour of fearful expectation. Where 
were our ships, were they all captured or de- 
stroyed ? 

Our men were frenzied with excitement, 
and murmurs went up, even from our well- 
disciplined crew, at our seeming inactivity ! 

At last a light was seen coming down the 
river, and then another, until one by one our 
gunboats appeared in the darkness and passed 
us to their anchorage. We counted them and 
found none missing, but we were compelled to 



170 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

possess our souls in patience, for not until 
morning could we learn the story of their gal- 
lant exploit. 

The Pinola, with the petard-man on board, 
ran up to the cable, and, selecting a hulk near 
the middle of the line, the petard was success- 
fully thrown on board, but in backing the 
ship off the wire became entangled and broke 
before the exploding current could be turned 
on. 

The Itasca, under command of Captain 
Caldwell, had singled out her schooner, and 
running alongside, a party of men was thrown 
on board, and while they were endeavoring 
to unshackle the cable, the signal rocket was 
thrown up, warning the forts of our attack. 

But nothing prevented Caldwell from ac- 
complishing the work he had come to do. 
For, notwithstanding the fire of the fort, our 
boys deliberately cut the large cable, using a 
cold chisel and sledge hammer, and as the 
chain was severed and fell overboard, the line 
of schooners, with the Itasca fast to her prize, 
swung down stream, and our ship found her- 
self grounded on the eastern shore ! 

Fortunately, the Pinola discovered the Itas- 



THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS 111 

ca's condition and came to her assistance, tug- 
ging at her for over an hour and parting two 
hawsers before she got her afloat ; but at last 
she succeeded, and our little fleet returned 
triumphant, having removed the famous bar- 
rier and successfully accomplished one of the 
most gallant feats recorded in naval history. 

As a token of their disgust the rebels sent 
down, toward morning, the very largest fire- 
raft they had yet constructed. In fact, it was 
so large that the Westfield, a former Brooklyn 
ferry boat, now armed and attached to our 
fleet, was sent out to tackle it. 

She quietly put her nose under the raft, 
and turning on her steam hose, quenched the 
fire sufficiently to prevent taking fire herself, 
when she pushed it ashore, where it made a 
superb blaze until daylight. 

On April 23 each ship of our fleet received 
an order from Farragut announcing that the 
l^assage of the forts would be attempted that 
night, and notifying all the commanding offi- 
cers of the proposed order of battle. 

The mortar boats were to remain in position 
and keep up a continuous fire. The six steam- 
ers attached to the mortar fleet were to join in 



172 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

the attack, but were not to attempt to pass 
the forts. The other ships were to pass in 
three lines, Farragut leading in the Hartford, 
we following him in the Richmond, with the 
Brooklyn astern of us, forming one division 
and passing on the Fort Jackson side. 

Captain Theodorus Bailey led the line on 
the Fort St. Philip side, in the Cayuga, fol- 
lowed by the Pensacola, Mississippi, Oneida, 
Varuna, Katahdin, Kineo, and Wissahickon. 

Captain Bell was to take the middle of the 
river in the Scioto, with the Iroquois, Pinola, 
Winona, Itasca, and Kennebec following. 
The order to all the ships was to keep in line 
and to push on past the forts as best they 
might. 

We had not been mere idle observers dur- 
ing the past month on board the Richmond, 
but had been devising every method possible 
to strengthen our means of offense and de- 
fense. Among other ideas, we originated, 
through the suggestion of our first assistant 
engineer Hoyt, a plan that was adopted by 
other ships in the fleet, of protecting the boil- 
ers against shot by hanging our spare chain 
cables in lengths outside, in the line of the 



THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS 173 

boilers, thus improvising an armor that was 
found quite effectual against solid shot as well 
as shell. 

After receiving our final orders, Lieutenant- 
Commander Cummings, our executive officer, 
who was afterward killed at Port Hudson, di- 
rected that our decks should be whitewashed, 
a novel conceit, but one that enabled us to dis- 
tinguish in the darkness any loose articles on 
deck, such as might otherwise have been diffi- 
cult to find in the excitement of action. 

When hammocks were piped down that even- 
ing, it was with the understanding that the 
men might sleep until midnight, when all 
hands were to be called quietly, without any 
of the customary noisy signals. 

That was indeed a solemn time for us all as 
we gathered at the evening meal in the ward- 
room. We now had immediately before us a 
task the outcome of which none could predict ; 
but, even if we were successful, it was highly 
improbable that the little band of eighteen 
officers who had now been together for two 
years, in the close and intimate relations that 
can only be found in the wardroom of a man- 
of-war, would ever a^ain meet at the table in 



174 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

an unbroken body. Who would be the miss- 
ing ones the next morning ? 

There was none of the merry jesting that 
usually marked our meals, and when the table 
was cleared every officer went to his stateroom, 
and I think each of us wrote some lines to his 
nearest and dearest in anticipation of what 
might happen before we saw another sun. I 
know, at least, that I wrote such a letter. 
Then lights were extinguished and all was 
quiet throughout the ship ; such absolute quiet 
as is never found except just before a battle. 

It seemed to me that I had scarcely closed 
my e3^es when the quartermaster, with his 
hooded lantern, touched me, and said quietly, 
" All hands, sir ! " 

I hastened on deck. The night was dark 
and the air was chill. Officers and men were 
hurriedly but quietly going to their stations 
for action, which in our case was at the port 
battery. 

My own division was amidships, where I had 
four 9-inch guns. My men came to their 
stations stripped for v/ork, some of them with- 
out their shirts, their monkey-jackets knotted 
by the sleeves, hanging loosely about their 
shoulders. 



THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS 175 
Guns were at once cast loose and provided, 
and then all stood quietly awaiting develop- 
ments. In the mean time our anchor was hove 
short, and we only waited the order to trip it 
and steam ahead. Down in the engine-room 
I could see, by the hatch near one of my guns, 
that the engineers were also on the alert, and 
the indicator showed that we had a heavy 
pressure of steam on. 

Ah ! here comes the Hartford, steaming up 
on our starboard quarter. As she comes 
abreast of us, our anchor is tripped, hove up, 
and we fall into place, a cable's length astern 
of her, and steam ahead. 

The other two divisions are dimly seen mov- 
ing up in echelon. Everything is done with 
the utmost silence, save for the thunder of the 
mortar fleet, which has now gone at it, ham- 
mer and tongs, and the air above us is filled 
with the hurtling shells, made visible in their 
passage, like comets, by their trains of fire. 

As yet our movement has not become known 
to the enemy, and every instant we are getting 
nearer to the forts, as yet unharmed. 

Ah I they have seen us at last ; and Fort 
Jackson belches out upon the Hartford a hail 



176 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

of shot and shell. We go ahead at full speed ! 
Now we are ourselves under fire, and " Load 
and fire at will " is the order from the quarter 
deck! 

Our ship throbs with the beat of the engines 
below and trembles with the shock from the 
continuous fire of our great guns. 

For the next hour it is all madness ! The 
captain of one of my guns is struck full in the 
face by a solid shot and his head is severed 
from his body; as he falls the lockstring in 
his hand is pulled and his gun is discharged ! 
" Hurry the body below and load again ! " 

I call my junior officer to take my place 
while I go to my forward gun, and as I turn a 
shell explodes and tears his right arm away ! 

A young master's mate hurries past me 
bearing a message to the captain, who is on 
the topgallant forecastle ; as he goes up the 
ladder and touches his cap to his commander 
a rifle ball from the fort, whose walls we are 
close abreast of, strikes him in the forehead, 
and the poor boy falls dead, his message not 
yet delivered ! 

Now we are so close to the fort that we can 
look in at the lighted portholes ; a solid shot 



THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS 111 

passes between two of my men and buries it- 
self in the mainmast not six inches above my 
head! I am covered with splinters, but un- 
harmed. 

The early dawn is breaking, and by its dim 
light and the blaze of a fire-raft drifting down 
past us I see just abreast of us a light river- 
boat crowded with rebel troops. As I look 
at her the cajitain of my No. 5 gun loads with 
grape and cannister, and depresses his gun as 
he trains it point blank upon the crowd of 
trembling wretches. 

I dash at him and catch the lockstring from 
his hand, just in time to save them from an 
awful fate ! We are all savages now, burning 
with the passion to kill, and the man looks 
at me resentfully as I frustrate his plan for a 
wholesale battue 1 

The fire upon us slackens, then ceases ; I 
glance through a porthole ; we are past the 
forts ; both of them are astern of us, and, thank 
God, the battle is won ! 



CHAPTER IV 

ON TO NEW ORLEANS 

When Flag Officer Farragut — soon to be 
made Eear Admiral for this night's work — 
looked about him from the quarter deck of the 
Hartford that glorious morning of the 24th of 
April which had made his name immortal, he 
counted fifteen of the seventeen vessels in his 
three divisions that had started with him the 
night before to pass the forts. 

The Kennebec, as we learned later, had been 
disabled and had dropped back out of the 
fight ; and the Varuna had run into a nest of 
rebel gunboats above the forts and had been 
sunk on the left bank of the river. Barring 
the loss of two of his smallest ships, his vic- 
torious fleet was now above the dreaded forts, 
and practically intact and ready for anything 
he might require of them at a moment's no- 
tice. 

So we all steamed up two or three miles 



ON TO NEW ORLEANS 179 

above the forts and anchored, and the flag- 
ship signaled the fleet, " Go to breakfast." 

We gathered at the morning meal in the 
wardroom of the Richmond with very differ- 
ent feelings from those of the night before, for 
by a great providence death had not come to 
onr mess and our little circle was unbroken, 
although two junior officers were among the 
dead and wounded. But in the hour of vic- 
tory one does not stop to mourn for those who 
have gone on before ; it is accepted as the 
fortune of war ! 

We had, of course, many personal experi- 
ences to relate and to compare, and there were 
some who said that the worst was yet before 
us ; but as a rule we were very happy, and so 
well satisfied with our success that we did not 
think much of the future as we enjoyed our 
well-earned breakfast. 

Coming up from the table and looking 
along the shore with my marine glass, I espied 
a large Confederate flag flying from a flagstaff 
on the river-bank where there was evidently a 
camp. As we all felt just then as though we 
owned the earth and the richness thereof, I 
went to Captain Alden and, on the ground of 



180 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

priority of discovery, asked permission to go 
on shore with my boat and pull down the flag. 

The captain laughed at my eagerness and 
gave me leave to take the second cutter and 
go to the flagship and present my petition for 
permission to pull the flag down to Commo- 
dore Farragut. 

I had the boat called away at once and 
started for the Hartford. I was taken into 
the cabin and there stated my case. " Why, 
certainly, Mr. Kelson," said Farragut good- 
naturedly, "go ahead and pull down all the 
Confederate flags you can find. And, by the 
way, make my compliments to Captain Alden 
and tell him we shall proceed up the river at 
once." 

As I went over the side. Captain Boggs of 
the Varuna came on board to report the cir- 
cumstances attending the loss of his ship. 

Off I went in great glee. I landed, left a 
single boat-keeper in the boat, and with my 
eleven men walked up to the staff and was 
just hauling down the flag when my coxswain 
said, " Good Lord, Mr. Kelson, here comes a 
regiment of rebs ! " 

I looked, and sure enough, not quite a regi- 



ON TO NEW ORLEANS 181 

ment, but a large body of Confederates in 
gray were marching down toward us and were 
already witliin easy gunshot. I supposed, of 
course, that we were to be called upon to sur- 
render, and gathered my little body of men 
close together, hoping to be able to make a 
successful retreat to the boat, when the Con- 
federates halted and I saw that they were all 
officers, about forty in number. 

One stepped out from their midst and ap- 
proached us ; and as I came forward to meet 
him he saluted and said, " Whom have I the 
honor of addressing, sir ? " 

He was a fine looking fellow and his uni- 
form was as fresh as though it had just come 
out of a tailor's shop, while I was unshaven 
and was wearing my very oldest fatigue suit, 
that was powder stained after last night's fight. 

I informed the officer of my name, rank, 
and to what ship I belonged and he resj^onded : 

'' I am Colonel , in command of the 

Regiment, Louisiana Home Guards, and am 
commanding here at Camp Chalmette. With 
the guns of the Federal fleet bearing upon 
us, I consider it my duty to surrender my 
command to the forces of the United States ! " 



182 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

Never in all my varied experiences, before 
or since that morning, have I been so embar- 
rassed as on the occasion when this remarka- 
bly spruce and very fluent gentleman tendered 
me his sword, and the other officers in their 
turn, in strict seniority, also handed me their 
side arms in token of their surrender " to the 
forces of the United States," as represented 
by me and my boat's crew ! 

I did my very best, however, to preserve my 
dignity and to give a strictly official air to the 
whole proceeding. But there was something 
so supremely ridiculous in these forty officers 
loading me down with their weapons, when I 
had come on shore merely for a flag, that I 
could scarcely conceal my mirth. 

I informed them that I should duly present 
the matter for consideration to our fleet com- 
mander, and saluting with great solemnity 
retired to my boat, making the best show of 
my twelve sailors possible under the circum- 
stances. 

I carried my boat load of swords off to the 
Hartford, and Farragut sent Captain Broom 
with a file of marines to parole the officers and 
to return them their side arms. I held on to 



ON TO NEW ORLEANS 183 

the flag, however, and I should have had it to 
this day had it not been lost at a church fair, 
where it had been borrowed for decorative 
purposes, some years later. 

By ten o'clock the fleet got under weigh and 
steamed slowly up the river, keeping a care- 
ful lookout at every bend for the ''line of bat- 
teries" of which we had so long heard but 
which we never discovered. 

As a matter of fact we did not find a oun 
placed in position to oppose us until we came 
to Chalmette, three miles below the city, where 
half a dozen old 32-pounders opened upon us, 
but were at once silenced by the leading ship 
before the fleet could get within range. 

All day of the 24th we steamed quietly up 
the river, past the sugar plantations, where 
sheets were hung out as flags of truce, and the 
only people visible were negroes who waved 
their hats to us in joyous welcome as we 
passed. 

That night we anchored, getting under weigh 
early the next morning, and just at noon we 
rounded the bend in the river below the city, 
and New Orleans was in sisrht ! 

We steamed up close in to the levee, which 



184 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

was alive with j^eople, and where great heaps 
of cotton bales were blazing that had been 
fired by the authorities to prevent them from 
falling into our hands. At the same time 
the unfinished iron-clad Louisiana came drift- 
ing down stream all ablaze. 

Just at this time a sudden thunder-storm 
burst uj)on us, and the rain fell in torrents as 
we dropped our anchors in the stream nearly 
opposite the mint. It was, altogether, a scene 
not easily to be forgotten. 

The fruitless negotiations which followed be- 
tween Farragut and Mayor Munroe, that came 
so near terminating in the bombardment of 
the city by the fleet, are all matters of history, 
and could not here be even intelligently sum- 
marized, except at great length. 

As is known, on May 1 General Butler 
and his troops came up to New Orleans and 
took formal possession of the city we had cap- 
tured ; and from that time it was fully restored 
to the Federal government, from which it had 
been alienated for more than a year. 

A portion of the fleet, with the Richmond 
as the flagship, soon after ascended the Mis- 
sissippi, receiving in turn the surrender of 



ON TO NEW ORLEANS 185 

Baton Rouge and Natchez, but meeting with 
the first check at Vicksburg, where, in re- 
sponse to our demand, the city government by 
a bare majority of one vote declined to sur- 
render ; .and as we, unfortunately, had no co- 
operating troops, we could not well enforce our 
demand, or, indeed, have held the city if we 
had been able to capture it. 

Two regiments of troops at that time would 
have prevented the necessity for the terrible 
campaign of Vicksburg and the sacrifice of 
fifty thousand lives in the prolonged struggle 
which was to come. 

The morning we sighted Vicksburg, as we 
were carefully feeling our way up the river, 
where ships of the size of ours had never be- 
fore been seen, I had the morning watch, and 
while yet a few miles below the city we saw 
a curious-looking boat drifting down stream 
with two negroes as its occupants, who were 
directing their frail craft with rude paddles. 
As they came near us the darkeys made signs 
that they wished to comnumicate, so I slowed 
our engines and the men paddled alongside, 
and, catching the rope that was thrown to 
them, to our surprise both climbed on board, 



186 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

setting adrift their little craft, whicli was 
merely an old mortar-box. 

The men were brought to me, and proved 
to be two very intelligent negroes, who, hear- 
ing by underground telegraph that "Massa 
Linkum's big ships had whopped out de Con- 
feds at New Orleans, and were coming up 
river to set de niggers free," had improvised 
a boat, and had trusted to the current to drift 
them down to the ships. 

They seemed perfectly convinced that our 
principal mission was to set them free, which, 
as it was before the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion had been written, was very far from 
being the case. In fact, it was directly the 
reverse, and commanding officers were as yet 
forbidden to receive or to harbor escaped 
slaves. 

General Phelps had already got himself into 
trouble because he declined to return these 
fugitives to their masters, and it seemed at 
first as though these poor fellows would have 
to be put on shore, where their fate, if cap- 
tured after having run away to us, might 
easily be imagined. 

But Captain Alden of the Richmond was 



ON TO NEW ORLEANS 18T 

a very kind-hearted man, and he intimated un- 
officially that if the presence of these men was 
not brought to his notice he should know no- 
thing about them. While their fate was thus 
hanging in the balance, the poor fellows were 
in a terrible state of anxiety ; but when they 
learned that they might go to work as ward- 
room servants, without pay, their gratitude 
seemed to know no bounds. 

To close this episode here, Jacob, the elder 
of the men, became my special servant on board 
of the Richmond ; and when I later obtained a 
command, he went with me, rated as captain's 
steward, and for two years he was my devoted 
servitor, and never have I had a more faithful, 
humble friend than this runaway slave. 

It was a relief to both army and navy when 
Butler's common-sense classification of the ne- 
groes as " contraband of war," cut the Gordian 
knot and enabled us to grapple successfully 
with one of the most difficult problems of the 
war, although why we should have been so 
long in thus solving it always passed my com- 
prehension. 

Finding that Yicksburg would not surrender 
to the naval forces, we ran down the river to 



188 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

New Orleans, and after several months of 
preparation returned to Vicksburg, convoying 
a detachment of three thousand troops in river- 
boats. But as the rebels had been improving 
the shining hours by establishing a series of 
heavy batteries on the heights overlooking the 
river, and had a garrison of ten thousand men, 
we were no better able to cope with Vicksburg 
than we had been earlier in the summer. 

We gallantly ran the batteries with our fleet, 
but we were no nearer to capturing the strong- 
hold from above than from below. So in July 
we ran the batteries again, down river and at 
night this time, giving up the capture of 
Vicksburg to the army ; and we all know the 
history of that long and tedious siege. 

Preparations now commenced in good ear- 
nest for the naval attack upon Mobile, and we 
learned that for that service several of the new 
monitors were to be sent out to our fleet. But 
Farragut, now admiral, was a very old-fash- 
ioned sailor, with a strong prejudice in favor of 
wooden ships : he had gained all his victories 
in such ships, and he said he was too old a dog 
to learn new tricks. 

So, as will be remembered, when he finally 



ON TO NEW ORLEANS 189 

went into the Mobile fight, his flagship was 
still the wooden ship Hartford ; and singular 
enough, the only vessel he lost in that memo- 
rable battle was the new iron-clad, Tecumseh. 
She was sunk by a torpedo, and went down 
with Captain Craven and one hundred and 
thirteen of her crew ! 

Had Farragut taken that vessel as his flag- 
ship, as he was urged to do, he would undoubt- 
edly have lost his life with the others. 

I was myself a witness of an exhibition of 
his aversion to iron-clad s. On the 4th of July, 
1862, our fleet and the squadron of Admiral 
Charles H. Davis were lying above Vicksburg 
where the two fleets had met a few days be- 
fore. Davis's flagship was the Benton, an 
iron-clad of which you will hear more later on 
in this narrative, and he was quite proud of 
her. 

On the 4th Admiral Davis invited Admiral 
Farragut to go down with him in the Ben- 
ton and " try the batteries," as he worded it. 
As this was an excursion entirely after Far- 
ragut's own taste, he at once accepted, and the 
two admirals steamed down the river on the 
trial trip. 



190 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

The Benton carried a very heavy arma- 
ment, but she was slow, and, being built on 
two hulls, did not handle well in a strong 
current. Arrived in good position, the ship 
opened fire on the upj^er shore battery, and 
the rebels were quite ready to respond. 

They had lately received a new Whitworth 
gun, which they had just got in position, and 
they brought this into play on the Benton. 
By a sorry chance a shell from it entered one 
of the Benton's bow ports and burst, killing 
and disabling several men. 

This was getting exciting, and Farragut, 
after striving for a long time to control him- 
self, burst out: " D — n it, Davis, I must go on 
deck ! I feel as though I were shut up here 
in an iron pot, and I can't stand it ! " 

And on deck he went, only compromising 
at last, through the entreaties of his friend, by 
entering the conning turret. This was the 
same instinct that sent him aloft in the Mo- 
bile fight. He wanted to see what was going 
on, and such a thing as fear of personal expos- 
ure never entered his mind. 



CHAPTER V 

CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER 

In November, 1862, while we were lying 
off Baton Rouge in the Richmond, I was offi- 
cially notified from Washington of my promo- 
tion to the grade of acting lieutenant. A 
week later I was ordered by Admiral Farra- 
gut to the command of the W. G. Anderson, 
then at the Pensacola Navy Yard. 

The Anderson, a beautiful clipper bark 
built in Boston for the Cape of Good Hope 
trade, had been lately purchased by the gov- 
ernment. She had been fitted out as a 
cruiser, her decks strengthened to carry an 
armament of six 32-pounders, two 24-pounder 
howitzers, and a 30-pounder Parrott rifle gun 
on the forecastle, and she had a full comple- 
ment of fifteen officers and one hundred and 
forty men. 

My orders were to proceed to the coast of 
Texas to join the fleet on the blockade, with 



192 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

my station at Aransas Bay. This was wel- 
come news, as there was a great deal of block- 
ade running in that quarter, which offered us 
a fine prospect for excitement and prize money. 
Our preparations were quickly completed, and 
a week after I had taken command we weighed 
anchor, saluted the flag officer's pennant, and 
sailed for our station. 

The first few days passed quietly, with no- 
thing to interrupt the usual routine of sea life 
on board of a man-of-war. As we were now in 
the direct track of the blockade runners bound 
from the coast of Texas to Havana, their fa- 
vorite port, I issued an order that a lookout 
should be kept at each masthead from day- 
light until dark ; and I also offered a prize of 
twenty-five dollars to the man sighting any 
vessel that we should afterward capture. 

As a result of these precautions the cry of 
" Sail ho ! " was constantly heard from our 
vigilant lookouts ; but the sails thus discovered 
proved, after much chasing, to be all legitimate 
traders, or at least their papers represented 
them as such, and we had our labor for our 
pains. 

As I looked at our track, as laid out on the 



CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER 193 

chart by tlie navigating officer, at tlie end of 
the fourth day, it resembled a Chinese puzzle 
much more than the course of a vessel bound 
to a certain point with a leading wind. So as 
I felt that I had no more time to lose, I laid 
my course for Galveston, where I was to report 
to Commodore Bell before going down to my 
station. 

The following morning I was aroused by my 
orderly, who reported that the officer of the 
deck had made out a schooner on the lee beam 
standing to the eastward. Sending up word 
to keep away in chase, I bundled on my clothes, 
and hurrying on deck found our ship with 
yards squared standing down for the schooner. 

The vessel was so far to the leeward of us 
that her hull was scarcely visible above the 
horizon, but the breeze was fresh and our can- 
vas was drawing well, and it was soon appar- 
ent that we were gaining on her. By the time 
we piped to breakfast we had raised her hull, 
and I felt confident of overhauling her in a 
few hours. 

But it now became evident that the schooner 
was by no means anxious that we should come 
to closer quarters, and proposed to prevent it if 



194 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

possible. Suddenly putting her lielm up, she 
kept away before the wind and crowded on 
canvas until she looked like a great white gull. 

This convinced us that we had at last fallen 
into luck, and that the schooner was what we 
had been so diligently seeking, — a blockade 
runner. To make assurance doubly sure, I 
gave the Parrott rifle its extreme elevation and 
sent a shell screaming down toward her, at 
the same time hoisting our colors, as a polite 
invitation for her to heave to and allow us to 
overhaul her. 

Biit our courtesy passed unnoticed, and she 
displayed no colors in return. So we followed 
her example in making sail, and every yard of 
duck that could be boomed out from any part 
of the ship was brought into play. 

We were evidently gaining on our chase, 
and everything seemed to promise well, when 
there was an ominous sound of slatting can- 
vas, and looking aloft, I saw that the breeze 
was failing us. This was unfortunate, for a 
stern chase is proverbially a long chase, the 
forenoon was already well-nigh sj)ent, and we 
were yet several miles astern of the schooner. 

I ordered that all our sails should be hoisted 



CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER 195 

taut and sheeted close home, but the wind con- 
tinued to get lighter until there was scarcely 
enough breeze to give us steerage-way. Oc- 
casionally we could feel a slight puff of air, 
and, remembering the experience of the frig- 
ate Constitution when she was chased by two 
English ships in 1813, I ordered that whips be 
rigged aloft and the sails thoroughly drenched 
with salt water. Still, with all our efforts, it 
was evident that we were not materially les- 
sening the difference between the two vessels, 
if indeed we were not losing ground. 

After consultation with my executive offi- 
cer, I decided that my only hope of securing 
our prize before dark, when she would easily 
evade us, was to send a party in one of our 
boats in chase. Accordingly Mr. Bailey had 
the first cutter called away, the crew carefully 
armed, and a small Butler machine gun 
mounted in the bow of the boat. 

The chase was now, as we estimated, nearly 
six miles distant ; and as she was all the time 
forging ahead two or three knots an hour, 
there was a prospect of a good long pull for 
it. But the bait was a tempting one and the 
boat crew were very ready to make the effort. 



196 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

I arranged with Acting Master Taylor, who 
was to go in charge of the boat, that if night 
shoukl overtake him before he coukl return 
to the ship I would lay her to, fire guns at 
intervals, and hoist signal lanterns so that we 
could easily be seen. He also took with him a 
number of rockets and Coston's signals to burn 
if needed. 

With my best wishes for his success Mr. 
Taylor shoved off, and his men pulled lustily 
toward the schooner. It was not necessary to 
give the order to keep a sharp lookout on the 
movements of the boat, for every man in the 
ship felt a personal interest in her, and all 
hands were watching her progress, from the 
masthead lookouts to the mess cooks, who 
hung gazing out of the ports whenever they 
could escape for a moment from their duties. 

To pull a heavy man-of-war cutter six or 
eight miles in a seaway is not child's play ; 
and although the men buckled to their oars 
like heroes, it was slow work. The sun was 
getting low when the officer of the deck called 
my attention from the boat I was watching so 
anxiously through the glass to a heavy bank 
of black clouds making to the northward. 



CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER 197 

" I am afraid that we are going to have our 
wind, now that we don't want it, sir," he said. 

A vivid flash of lightning, emphasized by a 
rattling clap of thmider, followed hard upon 
this remark. 

" Yes, indeed ; you must get in your stud- 
ding sails and flying kites at once, Mr. Allen, 
for it is coming down upon us by the run ! " 

Mr. Bailey came on deck and took the trmn- 
pet, as executive officer, the boatswain's call 
sounded shrill, and the light sails came rap- 
idly in. 

" Furl the topgallant sails, sir ! " I cried. 
And they were barely in when the wind was 
howling. 

" Stand by topsail halyards fore and aft, 
clew lines and reef tackles. Let go, clew down 
and haul out. Aloft, topmen, and put in two 
reefs ! " was the next order. 

I looked in vain for any sign of our boat. 
" Masthead there, can you see the cutter ? " 

" No, sir, the cutter and schooner are both 
entirely shut in ! " was the reply. 

By this time we were tearing through the 
water under our double reefs, keeping our 
course as nearly as possible toward where the 



198 /iV THE NAVAL SERVICE 

boat had last been seen. The squall brought 
rain with it in torrents, and, as the darkness 
closed in, the desire to overhaul the schooner 
became second to that of picking up my boat 
and her crew. So I decided to heave the shijD 
to and let Mr. Taylor find me, as I certainly 
could not expect to find him. 

I ordered lanterns hoisted at each mast- 
head and at the ends of the toj^sail yards, and 
directed that a gun be fired and a Coston sig- 
nal burned every ten minutes. 

By this time the squall had passed to lee- 
ward, the rain had ceased, and the moon was 
struggling out of the ragged-looking clouds. 

Boom ! went our first gun, and at the same 
time the Coston signal was ignited and flamed 
up, lighting all about us with its deep crimson 
glare. 

" Sail ho ! " yelled the forecastle lookout. 

'' Where away ? " 

" Close aboard on the starboard bow, sir ! " 

And there, sure enough, loomed the sails of 
a schooner on the port tack standing directly 
across our bow. 

" And it 's the Johnnie ! " exclaimed Mr. 
Bailey, as he gazed down from the forecastle 



CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER 199 

in astonishment upon the vessel almost under 
our bowsprit, her decks piled up with cotton 
bales, and her crew standing thunderstruck at 
their perilous position. 

I sprang upon the forecastle and hailed : 
" Heave to, or I '11 sink you ! Ready with 
No. 1 gun, Mr. Allen ! " 

"All ready, sir!" 

" Don't fire ! we surrender ! " came quickly 
from the schooner, as she flew up in the wind 
and lay bobbing helplessly on our port bow. 

" Send a boat at once to me with your cap- 
tain. And let him bring his papers, if he has 
any ! " I called out. 

" We stove our boat the other day, sir, and 
she won't float," they replied. 

" Very well ; I will send my boat to you. 
Mr. Bailey, have the second cutter lowered, 
and send Mr. Allen on board that schooner to 
take charge of her with a dozen well-armed 
men. Let her captain and his crew come 
back here in our boat. Take a master's mate 
with you, Mr. Allen I " 

"Aye, aye, sir," and the boat was called 
away and made ready. 

" By the way, Mr. Allen," I called out as 



200 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

the boat shoved off, " see if you can find out 
from them anything about Mr. Taylor. In 
dodging him they have probably run afoul of 
us." 

I had gone aft to see the boat off and to 
give these orders ; and as they were executed ' 
I looked to see where the schooner lay, but 
could not find her. 

" Forecastle there ! where away is the 
schooner ? " I hailed. 

There was a moment's pause, and then 
the hesitating reply came from the lookout, 
" She has drifted out of sight, sir ; I can't 
make her out ! " 

I hastened forward, and, sure enough, no- 
thins: could be seen of her. 

" Schooner ahoy ! " I hailed and listened, 
but no response came back. • 

A signal was burned, but it only served to 
show us our second cutter that I had just sent 
away, pulling aimlessly in the direction where 
we had last seen the schooner. 

It was very evident that we were duped. 
While we had been lowering our boat she had 
quietly filled away, and had already such a 
start as to render a search for her in the dark- 



CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER 201 

ness well-nigh hopeless, more particularly as 
two of my boats were now away from the 
ship. 

Thoroughly vexed at the stupidity of the 
forecastle lookout, whose carelessness had per- 
mitted such a ruse to succeed, I recalled the 
second cutter, and paced my quarter deck, 
my mind occupied with most unpleasant re- 
flections. 

It was evident that I must remain with my 
ship hove to, or I should probably lose my 
first cutter, if she had not already gone to the 
bottom in the squall ! It was certainly a re- 
markably bad quarter of an hour that I was 
having just then. 

" C-r-r-r-a-c-k ! " came the sound of firing to 
leeward, and up shot a rocket, leaving a trail of 
fire behind it like a meteor. 

" Hurrah ! there 's Taylor down there with 
his Butler coffee-mill ! Fill away, Mr. Bai- 
ley, and make all sail ! Be alive about it, or 
we shall not be in at the death ! There he 
goes again ! I don't believe that schooner 
will get away from us this time ! " 

The yards flew round and we filled, as the 
topmen sprang aloft to turn out the reefs. The 



202 /,V THE NAVAL SERVICE 

topsail yards flew to the mastheads, the top- 
gallant sails were sheeted home with lightning 
speed, and we bore down upon the scene of con- 
flict with all possible dispatch. 

But the firing had already ceased, and we 
soon saw signal lanterns hoisted from the 
masts of the schooner that had given us such 
a chase. 

" Well, sir, we have got her at last ! " came 
over the water in Mr. Taylor's familiar tones, 
as we approached. 

" Glad to hear it, Mr. Taylor," I replied ; 
"but what have you got ? " 

" The schooner Royal Yacht, sir. She ran 
out of Galveston, through the whole blockad- 
ing fleet, night before last. She has a cargo 
of one hundred and fifty bales of cotton, sir ! " 

" Give the cutter's crew three cheers, men ! " 
I said, and our crew sprang into the rigging 
and gave three as hearty cheers as ever came 
from one hundred throats. 

" I will send Mr. Allen on board the schooner 
with a prize crew, Mr. Taylor, and you can 
return in your own boat with the schooner's 
captain and crew." 

This exchange was soon made, and Mr. Tay- 



CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER 203 

lor came on board with his prisoners, and gave 
me the particulars of the capture. When the 
squall struck us, he had been already five hours 
in chase. He lost sight of the schooner, and 
for a time had his hands full in keeping his 
boat from filling. When the wind lulled, as 
nothing was in sight, he determined to return 
to the ship, and, hearing our guns and seeing 
our signals, he was making the best of his way 
back to us, when the schooner that was escap- 
ing from us almost ran him down. 

He at once opened fire from his Butler gun 
at short range, and drove the schooner's crew 
from the deck by a well-directed rifle fire. Left 
without a steersman, the vessel yawed, the cut- 
ter dashed alongside, the boat's crew sprang on 
board, and the prize was taken ! 

Upon investigation, it proved that the Royal 
Yacht had run out frcnn Galveston two nights 
before ; and, skillfully piloted by her captain, 
who was very familiar with the intricacies of 
the bay, she had ]3assed through our entire 
blockading squadron, under cover of the dark- 
ness, and had got to sea unnoticed. 

By ten o'clock we were again on our course 
for Galveston, with the Royal Yacht following 



204 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

in our wake, the cynosure of many watchful 
eyes. There was a good leading breeze, and 
by the same hour the following night we an- 
chored among the Galveston fleet, and I re- 
ported my arrival to Commodore Bell. 

The officers of the various vessels of the 
blockading fleet were very positive in their as- 
sertions that the Royal Yacht could not by any 
possibility have escaped from Galveston. But 
we found Galveston papers on board, printed 
the morning of the day she escaped, and much 
to their mortification the doubters were com- 
pelled to acknowledge the unwelcome fact. 

The next day I dispatched the schooner to 
Key West with a prize crew, where in due 
time she was libeled, condemned, and sold 
with her cargo for nearly sixty thousand dol- 
lars. Of the proceeds of the sale the govern- 
ment received one half, and the other moiety 
was divided among my officers and crew. 

As I had captured her on the high seas, out 
of sight of any other vessel, I received, as com- 
manding officer, one tenth of our half, which 
made a very agreeable addition to my bank 
account, and was a pleasant souvenir of my 
first capture of a blockade runner. 



CHAPTER VI 

A NARROW ESCAPE 

It was Christmas morning, and very early 
on Christmas morning, for the sun, like a 
great ball of burnished copper, was just rising 
above the mist that hung low along the eastern 
horizon, eliding with the first flush of dawn 
the cold, gray clouds and shimmering on the 
crest of the waves that rippled in the freshen- 
ing breeze. 

Under all sail and braced close to the wind, 
a war-ship is standing in for the land, where 
a long stretch of low sand hills is broken by 
the entrance to a bay, an ugly line of break- 
ers making across ; while a mile beyond, the 
tall, white shaft of a half -ruined lighthouse is 
visible. 

The vessel is a clipper-built bark, her long, 
tapering masts heavily sparred and spreading 
a cloud of canvas. The lines of her hull are 
so fine, her bow is so sharp, and her run so 



206 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

clean moulded that she could evidently show 
great speed were she not so closely hauled. 
As it is, although every thread of canvas is 
drawing, the l)()wlinc's are liaulod well out and 
the weather leeches of the topsails shiver as 
the ship rises and falls on the strong easterly 
swell; for she is kei)t ahnost in the wind's eye 
by the old quartermaster at i\\v, wluicl, under 
the watchful conning of the officer of tlie deck. 

Near one of the after guns stands an officer 
looking through his marine glass toward the 
southward, steadying himself, meanwhile, by 
leaning against the weather mizzen rigging. 

"• Well, sir, what do your young eyes make 
of her?" I queried. 

" It is certainly the Connecticut, and she is 
making the best of lier way down tlie coast, 
under steam and sail." 

"Just as I thought! Confound it, why 
could n't we have been a couple of hours ear- 
lier ! Well, Mr. Bailey, it seisms })retty certain 
that W(5 have lost the su|)ply stiiamer, as w(i 
did our blockade runner last night, by being 
a little too late ! " 

" That will make it a very dismal Christmas 
for us, sir." 



A NARROW ESCAPE 207 

" I know it, Mr. Bailey, and I am as much 
disappointed as you possibly can be. I was 
anxiously expecting some important private 
letters by the Connecticut, to say nothing of 
the necessity of stocking uj) my mess stores. 
I fancy that you are not much better off in 
that respect in the wardroom." 

" Better off, sir ! Why we are down to our 
very last can of tomatoes, and that, with salt 
beef, is very likely to be our Christmas dinner 
to-day in the wardroom, with possibly a plum 
duff as a wind-up. It 's simply awful, sir ! " 

"I am heartily sorry for you, Mr. Bailey, 
and I must see if my steward cannot rake up 
something among my stores to help out your 
table a bit. I shall expect you and the doctor 
to dine with me to-day, however. But we 
must be getting in very close to our anchor- 
age, I think. Yes, there is our buoy just off 
the lee bow. We shall fetch it nicely on this 
tack. Call all hands, sir, at once, and bring 
the ship to an anchor." 

The order was passed, the boatswain's call 
rang out sharp and clear, the boatswain's 
mates took up the refrain in a minor key, and 
above the notes of the whistles the ho:;rse cry. 



208 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

" All hands bring sliip to anchor, ahoy ! " 
resounded through the berth deck. Respon- 
sive to the call, the quiet ship was soon alive 
with men hastening to their stations. 

" Stand by halyards, sheets, clewlines, and 
down hauls fore and aft ! " shouted the exec- 
utive officer through his trumpet. " Lower 
away ; let go ; clew up, haul down ! " There 
was a whizzing of ropes, a flapping of canvas, 
and in a moment the yards were down and the 
sails were hano'inof in festoons. 

" Away, topgallant and royal yard men ! 
Lay aloft, topmen and lower yard men ! 
Trice up booms ; lay out ; furl ! 

A hundred men sprang into the rigging as 
they were called away ; each yard swarmed 
with them as they rapidly furled the sails ; and 
as the ship lost her headway, the anchor was 
let go, the crew quickly laid down from aloft, 
and the beautiful ship that but a few minutes 
before had been alive under a cloud of canvas 
was quietly swinging to her anchor, with sails 
trimly furled, bunts triced uj), yards squared 
by lifts and braces, and no man to be seen 
above the hammock nettings save the lookout 
at each masthead and the commanding officer, 



.1 NARROW ESCAPE 209 

who from the poop had been critically watch- 
ing this evolution of " a flying-moor," and now 
turned to express his satisfaction to the execu- 
tive officer, who was turning the trumpet over 
to the officer of the deck. 

ti Very neatly done, indeed, Mr. Bailey ! 
We could n't have beaten that in the old Rich- 
mond with three times our crew! Men who 
show the result of your excellent training so 
smartly as this at least deserve a Christmas 
dinner. Have my gig called away immediately 
after breakfast, and I will go on shore and see 
if I cannot knock over a bullock. I don't be- 
lieve any of us will object to a bit of roast 
beef, and I shall be glad to make a little 
reconnaissance at the same time." 

My predecessor on this station had been 
Captain Robert Wade, in command of the 
United States bark Arthur. As she was at 
Pensacola when I took command of the An- 
derson, I went on board of her one day to learn 
something about my new station. 

" Well, Kelson," said Captain Wade in re- 
sponse to my queries, ''it is a God-forsaken 
coast, and I am not sorry to have got away 
from it myself. You will need to anchor 



210 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

in about ten fathoms, say three miles from 
shore ; for when the northers come along next 
winter you will very likely have to slip, and 
then you will require plenty of sea room to 
work off shore." 

" Any inhabitants about the bay ? " 

" I never saw any. There are some half- 
wild cattle on Matagorda Island, and I used 
to go on shore, occasionally, and shoot one for 
the messes. It 's a pretty lonely spot, I as- 
sure you ! " 

That was about all that I had been able to 
learn, in advance, of the stretch of coast I 
was supposed to take care of ; and up to this 
blessed Christmas Day, now nearly two weeks, 
no signs whatever of life in the neighborhood 
of the bay had been discovered, although a 
bright lookout had been constantly maintained 
from the mastheads of my shij). 

Consequently I felt that I was taking every 
reasonable precaution when I ordered my 
boat's crew to wear their cutlasses, and had 
half a dozen Sharps' rifles put in the stern 
sheets, for I knew that we would be more than 
a match for any possible bushwhackers, al- 
though I had no reason to expect any opposi- 



A NARROW ESCAPE 211 

tion. My surgeon had gladly accepted an 
invitation to join me, and soon after breakfast 
we shoved off from the shij) on our quest for 
beef. 

Across the mouth of the bay the breakers 
made a line of white-cap23ed surf ; but acting 
on instructions I had received from Captain 
Wade, I watched for a heavy roller, and then 
we gave way and went in with it, keeping the 
boat's stern to the sea, and thus crossed the 
bar with only a slight drenching. 

About a mile, as I remember it, from the 
bar stood the lighthouse. Early in the war 
the rebels, in accordance with their general 
policy, had removed the lantern, and had then 
attempted to blow up the tower ; but the sturdy 
shaft had defied their efforts, and, barring a 
ragged gap in one side, it was, as yet, practi- 
cally intact. 

Landing a few rods from the lighthouse, I 
left the boat beached, with orders to the crew 
not to stray away and to keep their arms in 
readiness for use. Then, accompanied by the 
doctor and my coxswain, I strolled up to the 
tower, intending to obtain from the top a look- 
out over the surrounding country. 



212 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

But this I soon found was no easy task, for 
the rebels had blown out the lower iron steps 
from the inside : and it was only by using con- 
siderable effort that we at last succeeded in 
accomplishing our object, and only then after 
pulling down in the struggle two of the steps 
still remaining in place. Plowever, at last we 
scrambled up and made our way to the balcony 
above the lantern-room. 

From this point the view was very extended ; 
and unslinging my marine glass, I, sailor-like, 
turned first to look at the beautiful picture my 
noble ship presented gracefully riding at her 
anchors, her tall masts tapering skyward, the 
ensign and pennant drooping idly from the 
peak and masthead in the light air, the guns 
peering from her side being the only thing to 
indicate that she was not some " peaceful mer- 
chant caravel." 

" She is certainly a beauty, doctor. You 
don't often see a prettier craft, and she is as 
good as she is bonny, and carries a swift pair 
of heels into the bargain ! But what are you 
looking at over there so intently ? It is easy 
to see that you are not a sailor ! Have you got 
a bullock in range over those hills ? " 



A NARROW ESCAPE 213 

While speaking I turned my glass in the 
direction where the doctor was looking so ear- 
nestly, and the sight presented almost took 
away my breath, and for an instant I was 
speechless. 

On our right, over the sheltering sand hill 
which had heretofore concealed them from our 
view, was a rebel camp in plain sight, into 
which, as I looked down from the tower, it 
seemed to me that I could have cast a stone ! 

Two score dingy shelter tents and two or 
three larger marquee tents indicated the pres- 
ence of at least a hundred men, while before 
one of the large tents were two brass field- 
pieces ! 

There was no perceptible stir in the camp, 
and for a moment I hoped that we might not 
have been observed, and that possibly there was 
yet time for us to escape unnoticed from this 
trap into which I had so unwittingly cast my- 
self. 

But the silence and quiet were delusive ; for 
as I looked again more carefully, I saw that 
men were stealing over the sand hills toward 
my boat, which they doubtless hoped to cap- 
ture by surprise ! 



214 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

We have been told by those who have been 
revived, after coming well-nigh within the gates 
of death by drowning, that in the few agoniz- 
ing moments before they became unconscious, 
a thousand recollections of the life they were 
leaving flashed through their minds. So now 
I recalled Wade's words when he had told me 
that this island was uninhabited, and cursed 
myself for having trusted to them. I thought 
of the report of the affair Mr. Bailey, soon 
to be commander in my jilace, would make to 
the admiral. What business had I, the cap- 
tain, out of my ship, when a junior officer 
could have been sent in to make a reconnais- 
sance, if indeed it were needed at all ! And 
what sad news to be sent home to my young 
wife, for a Texas prison pen was but a shade 
better than death ! 

But I was aroused by the doctor's question, 
" Had n't we better be getting out of this, 
captain ? " and coming to a realizing sense of 
the necessity for immediate action, I made 
quick time in getting down to the ground. 

The boat's crew were amusing themselves by 
shying stones at a bottle they had set uj) for 
a mark, in utter unconsciousness of their immi- 



A NARROW ESCAPE 215 

nent danger, and they were evidently greatly 
surprised at the rapid manner with which we 
came down to the boat. 

" Into the boat at once, men ! " I cried, " and 
give way for your lives ! The rebs are almost 
on to}) of us ! " 

The doctor and I climbed into the stern 
sheets as the men sprang into their places ; 
and as they bent to their oars, the rebels, see- 
ing that they were discovered, poured over the 
sand hills with exultant yells. Fortunately we 
got the boat well in motion before they opened 
fire, and their shots flew wild, save one that 
buried itself in the stern of the boat close to 
the rudder head. 

" They are bringing the fieldpiece over the 
hill, captain ! " said the doctor, who was watch- 
ing the enemy. 

" Give way, lads ! Make her jump, if you 
don't want to sleep in prison to-night ! " I 
shouted, keeping the boat as close over to the 
port shore as it was possible without fouling 
the oars. 

Bang ! and a shell came shrieking through 
the air so close to our heads that, as it burst, 
a fragment cut a slice out of the starboard 



216 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

gunwale of the boat, between the stern sheets 
and the after oar. At the same tmie the 
stroke oarsman was wounded in the left arm 
by another bit of shell. But the brave fellow 
did not abandon his oar or lose his stroke ; and 
the doctor, tearing a piece from his own shirt 
sleeve, bound it about the wounded arm and 
stanched the blood, without moving the man 
from his seat. 

" They are waving us to come in, captain," 
said the doctor, as he finished binding up the 
man's arm and took a look astern. 

" Well, we won't oblige them," I replied. 
" Give them a sight of our ensign, doctor, so 
that they may know for certain who we are. 
It will not be the first time they have fired on 
that flag ! " 

The doctor reached behind me, as I steered, 
and placed the staff of the boat flag in its 
socket, and " Old Glory " streamed out behind 
us as we flew through the water. 

This brought another shell, which passed 
close astern of the boat, missing us by so little 
that we all held our breath as it came scream- 
ing toward us. But we, meanwhile, were not 
tarrying. Our light boat was dashing along, 



A NARROW ESCAPE 217 

and her speed evidently disconcerted the hur- 
ried aim of our adversaries, w^hose next shots 
were wide of the mark, although quite near 
enough to make their singing very unpleasant 
music. 

But another and an entirely unexpected 
danger now confronted us ; for as we neared 
the lower point of the bay, where we expected 
to be out of range, men were seen launching 
from the beach a boat somewhat larger than 
our own, with the evident purpose of cutting 
us oif before we could reach the bar. 

Under ordinary circumstances, or single- 
handed, I should not have objected to this 
prospective contest, for I felt very sure that, 
boat for boat, we should be more than a match 
for them ; but if we stopped to fight, the 
artillerymen, who were now dragging their 
pieces down the beach, would get us in range, 
and a single well-directed shot from the gun 
would easily have put us hors de combat. So 
that I viewed this new complication as very 
far from being an agreeable incident. 

But before the soldiers got their boat afloat, 
which they were going about in a very lub- 
berly manner, we were startled by the report 



218 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

of a heavy gun from outside, and a rifle sliell 
came hurtling high above our heads and landed 
in the sand very near our pursuers. A second 
shot followed almost immediately, which to our 
delight exploded in the very midst of the men, 
capsizing the piece and dispersing the gunners 
in a very summary manner ! 

" Hurrah ! doctor, the Anderson is talking 
back ! There she is, God bless her ! " and as 
I spoke the dear old barkey appeared in plain 
sight under topsails, courses, and jibs, right 
abreast of the entrance to the bay, and much 
closer in to the bar than she had any business 
to be, and the Parrott rifle rang out again, 
landing a shell in such very close proximity 
to the party who were getting the boat afloat 
that they at once abandoned their work. 

" Give way now, boys ; we '11 go through the 
breakers if we have to go through bottom side 
up ! Our friends will pick us up." And we 
dashed into the surf. The boat rose almost 
on end, then came down and touched bottom, 
but at the same instant another roller lifted 
her, the men bent to their oars sturdily, and 
in a minute more we were through the surf 
and safe in the quiet water outside the bar. 



A NARROW ESCAPE 219 

As we emerged from the rollers the Ander- 
son luffed up in the wind, her main topsail 
was braced aback, and the crew sprang into 
the rigging and gave three hearty cheers, 
which must have been very depressing to our 
would-be captors. 

We were received on board with a warm 
greeting that set all discipline at defiance for 
a few minutes, and then the usual calm rou- 
tine of a well-disciplined ship of war settled 
down, and all excitement was repressed as we 
hoisted in the gig and made sail on the other 
tack for our anchorage. 

My honest steward's welcome, when I went 
down to my cabin, was none the less hearty 
because in failing to bring off the coveted 
bullock I had compelled him to serve me a 
very meagre dinner; and as I sat down to 
the simple meal he had provided, I could not 
but be grateful for my very narrow escape 
from taking my Christmas dinner that day in 
a Texas prison pen ! 



CHAPTER VII 

A SUCCESSrUL STILL HUNT 

About three months after my adventure in 
the bay, the doctor came to me one morning 
after quarters and reported that he had a num- 
ber of cases on the sick list of a decidedly 
scorbutic character. This, he said, was mainly 
the result of a lack of fresh vegetables in the 
messes, as we had been neglected by the sup- 
ply steamers for a long time. Since my late 
experience, I had made no further attempts 
at obtaining fresh beef on shore, so had come 
down to a salt-beef ration. 

The doctor said that it would be necessary 
to have a change in the dietary to check the 
progress of this disease, and he submitted his 
report for my consideration. 

Although my orders from Commodore Bell 
contemplated my keeping a close blockade of 
Aransas, I had received, in view of the extent 
of coast I was expected to care for, permission 



A SUCCESSFUL STILL HUNT 221 

to exercise a certain amount of discretion, 
which I felt assured would warrant me in run- 
ing down to the Rio Grande under the exist- 
ing circumstances. 

That was the southern limit of the Texan 
coast, about one hundred and seventy -five 
miles from Aransas, and was included in my 
beat, as the Anderson was the only ship on the 
blockade between Galveston and Matamoras. 

When I notified Mr. Bailey of my intention 
and gave orders for getting under weigh at 
daylight the following morning, my executive 
officer did not attempt to conceal his pleasure 
at the prospect of a change from the deadly 
monotony of the blockade ; and I observed that 
evening, as I took my after-dinner exercise on 
the poop, that the songs from the forecastle 
displayed an unusual amount of vigor in the 
choruses. Indeed, I had never heard " Dick 
Turpin's Ride to York " go off with such vim, 
and the chorus, — 

" My bonny, my bonny, my bonny Black Bess," 

could almost have been heard on the sand hills, 
three miles away, that sheltered our Confeder- 
ate friends, the Texan Ranoers. 



222 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

The. next morning we were off bright and 
early with a fresh breeze from the northward, 
and the following day we dropped our anchor 
just north of the imaginary line that divided 
Mexican from American waters. In fact, I was 
so close to this boundary line that, although I 
laid my anchor on American bottom, when 
the wind was from the northward my ship 
swung into Mexican water. By treaty this line, 
starting from the centre of the mouth of the 
Rio Grande, runs out three miles W. N. W. 
I mention this particularly, as its importance 
in my story will be discovered farther on. 

My anchorage was well outside of the fleet 
in the harbor, which to my surprise included 
a number of large merchant steamers flying 
the English flag, all of them busily engaged in 
loading or unloading ; and all of them, as I ob- 
served, were well to the southward of the line, 
and consequently in Mexican waters. 

Our anchors down, sails furled, and yards 
squared, I had my gig called away, and pulled 
in shore to an American ship of war with whom 
I had exchanged signals and which I had 
thus learned was the United States steamer 
Princess Royal, a captured English blockade 



A SUCCESSFUL STILL HUNT 223 

runner purcliased by our government at the 
prize sale and fitted out as a vessel of war. 
She was commanded by Commander George 
Colvocoresses, a regular officer, a Greek by 
birth, and called by the sailors, who could not 
grapple with this Hellenic appellation, " Old 
Crawl-over-the-crosstrees." 

After reporting and explaining my errand 
at the Rio Grande, I expressed my astonish- 
ment at the activity that was manifest on every 
side in the harbor. 

"Yes," said the captain, "I have had the 
pleasure of seeing small vessels come in here 
almost every day loaded with Texan cotton, 
which they have quietly discharged in lighters, 
and those ships have brought cargoes of arms 
and ammunition from England which they sell 
at excellent prices to the Confederate agents 
ashore, and after they have discharged they 
will load up with cotton for Liverpool." 

" What becomes of the war material ? " 

" Oh, it is all smuggled across the river, a 
little farther up from the coast, into Texas. 
Those guns you can now see being hoisted out 
will be in the hands of the Confederates within 
the next sixty days." 



224 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

" And can nothing be done about it? " 

"Absolutely nothing. I have protested 
with the authorities, and they assure me that 
nothing contraband of war shall be permitted 
to cross the river into Texas. But the under 
customs officers are easily bribed, and they 
become conveniently blind." 

Returning to the Anderson, I pulled near 
ihe discharging ships, and I could readily see 
that they were, as the captain had said, hoist- 
ing out munitions of war, with no attempt at 
concealment. Of course, as they were ships 
of a neutral power in Mexican waters, we, as 
United States officers, were helpless in pre- 
venting this traffic, which was of such great 
benefit to the Confederates and which kept 
their trans-Mississippi armies so admirably 
equipped. 

On going ashore the next day to arrange for 
supplies, I found the streets of Matamoras 
swarming with Confederate officers, who made 
themselves offensive to us in many ways. So 
I did not endeavor to prolong my stay at the 
Rio Grande, but pushed things along, laid in a 
generous supply of fresh fruits and vegetables, 
filled our water tanks, and was ready for sea 



A SUCCESSFUL STILL HUNT 225 

agfain within a week. Then one afternoon I 
went on board the Princess Royal to make my 
farewell call on Captain Colvocoresses, and re- 
turning to my ship, was about getting under 
weigh, when, taking a look seaward, I saw a 
schooner standing in for the harbor from the 
eastward. 

Mr. Bailey, who was looking at her intently 
with his glass, exclaimed : " Captain, she is full 
of cotton and carrying a large deck load. She 
is a blockade runner, sure ! " 

A glance through my own glass verified the 
correctness of his report. 

" By George, Mr. Bailey, we '11 have a try 
for her ! " 

" I am afraid it is no use, captain. She is 
too near the line ; before we can get under 
weigh she will be in Mexican water, where she 
can laugh at us." 

" Yes, if she finds out who we are. Let us 
see if we can't outwit her. I don't believe she 
has noticed us yet, and she is well to the east- 
ward of the line yet. Quietly brace our yards 
awry ; cock-bill the main yard a bit ; haul 
down that pennant and ensign ; run in our 
guns and close the ports ; slack up the running 



226 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

rigging ; throw an old sail over the port gang- 
way as though we had been taking in cargo 
there ; get up a burton on the mainstay and a 
whip on the main yard ; send all hands below. 
In short, turn the old ship into a merchantman 
for the time being, to throw the schooner off 
the scent. If we succeed in doing that, I will 
guarantee that we bag her." 

Mr. Bailey hurried away to have this work 
done, and I sent my orderly to ask Mr. Taylor 
to come into the cabin. 

I explained my plan to him, and told him to 
man and arm the second cutter and to drop 
her under the starboard quarter, where she 
could not be seen from the approaching 
schooner, and to be ready at a word from me 
to dash upon the prize. I knew that I coidd 
depend upon this officer for an intelligent and 
prompt performance of his share of the work, 
and I told him the instant he got on board 
the schooner to heave her to on the other tack 
and at once take the bearing of the mouth of 
the river so carefully that he could swear to 
the vessel's position, if the matter should come 
up in the prize court for adjudication. 

Then I replaced my uniform coat and cap 



A SUCCESSFUL STILL HUNT 227 

with a white linen jacket and a straw hat, and 
took up a conspicuous position on the poop, 
looking very like a merchant captain. Mean- 
while Mr. Bailey, following my suggestions, 
had transformed my dandy man-of-war bark 
into a merchant drogher, to all appearance 
from a short distance. He had also got 
himself up in the masquerade costume of a 
Kennebunk mate, and in his shirt sleeves 
was lounging over the midship rail, cigar in 
mouth, watching the approach of our Confed- 
erate friend, who was standing in for the an- 
chorage evidently entirely unconscious of any 
lurking danger. 

The greatest difficulty I experienced was in 
keeping my men out of sight. They were as 
full of excitement as a cat watching for a 
mouse, and would endeavor to steal up the 
hatchways for a peep at the schooner, notwith- 
standing all the vigilance of their officers. 

At last the schooner was within little more 
than a cable's length of our port quarter, and 
her crew were standing by to shorten sail, in 
anticipation of anchoring, when I quietly 
walked across the poop and gave Mr. Taylor 
the word. 



228 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

Like a tiger springing upon his prey, the 
boat flew through the water, was alongside 
the schooner, and Mr. Taylor was at the tiller, 
which he put hard down, to the utter astonish- 
ment of the steersman. 

The boat's crew were already in possession, 
the schooner, was luffed up in the wind, close 
under my quarter, a line was thrown to her, 
her sails came down by the run, and she was 
our prize without striking a blow and almost 
without a word being uttered ! 

The captain of the vessel had not fully re- 
covered from his astonishment when he was 
brought on board my ship. From him I 
learned that she was the America, with one 
hundred and eleven bales of cotton, with which 
she had run out of Laredo a few days before. 
Casting a glance about my decks, now filled 
with men, he muttered : " Well you 'uns cer- 
tainly tricked me that time ! This must be 
that infernal Yankee bark they told me was 
off Aransas Pass ! " 

As I did not deem it advisable to remain 
longer in port after my capture, although it 
was undoubtedly made in American waters, I 
got my ship under weigh at once, and within 



A SUCCESSFUL STILL HUNT 229 

thirty minutes we were standing out to sea 
with the schooner in tow, and the whole affair 
had passed off so quietly that I doubt if a ves- 
sel in port was aware that anything out of the 
common order had taken place. 

I sent the America to Key West with a 
prize crew, and the following evening I was 
back at my old anchorage off Aransas with 
an abundance of fresh provisions and mess 
stores and enjoying the comfortable feeling 
that comes of outwitting an adversary. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CATCHING A TARTAR 

But the good fortune that had thus far 
fallen to the lot of the Anderson was to take 
a turn, for we had not long returned to our 
station at Aransas when an affair occurred 
that was a decided damper upon the fun we 
had heretofore enjoyed in capturing prizes. 

One morning while the watch was washing 
down the decks the lookout at the masthead 
gave the always welcome "" Sail ho ! " and upon 
closer inspection the vessel in sight proved to 
be a small sloop hugging the shore to the north- 
ward and evidently running down the coast on 
her way to the Rio Grande. 

Of course we slipped our anchors at once 
and made sail in chase ; but the wind was light 
and the sloop was of such light draft that, 
having a leading wind, she coidd safely keep 
almost in to the surf line, where we could not 
possibly get at her with the shij). In conse- 



CATCHING A TARTAR 231 

queiice, the sloop was rapidly approaching the 
entrance to Aransas Bay, where she would 
easily have escaped us, when I resorted to my 
former expedient and sent in an armed cutter, 
with a light gun, to head her off, knowing that 
if I could get her off shore I should eventually 
capture her. 

But when the captain of the sloop saw what 
I was up to, he put his helm up, without hesi- 
tation, let draw his sheets, and drove his vessel 
through the light surf and high up on the 
beach. Then the crew at once abandoned the 
craft, and, running up over the sand hills, dis- 
appeared. 

The officer in my boat, following sharp upon 
his chase, ran alongside the sloop, of which he 
took possession, and found her loaded with 
between forty and fifty bales of cotton. But, 
unfortunately, she had been beached at the 
very tiptop of high water ; and as the tide soon 
after began to run ebb, it was very evident 
to Mr. Allen that his prize would soon be high 
and dry, so he returned to the ship for further 
orders. 

That evening at high water I sent in three 
armed boats, with orders for one of them to 



232 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

lay outside the breakers and cover tlie land- 
ing party. The crews of the other two boats, 
under command of my executive officer, were 
directed to make every effort to get the sloop 
afloat, and for that purpose they were amply 
provided with hawsers, blocks and tackles, a 
kedge anchor, and such other paraphernalia as 
I deemed necessary for the proposed work. 

The wind was light and there was a full 
moon, so that the conditions were very favora- 
ble for success. Mr. Bailey laid out the sloop's 
anchor, backed with our kedge, brought the 
hawser to the sloop's windlass, reinforced it 
with a heavy purchase, and got a heavy strain 
on the hawser with the aid of his twoscore 
men, who were working with all their heart, 
but not an inch would she budge. Her skip- 
per had driven her up with all sail set, and she 
had made a bed for herself in the soft sand 
from which we could not possibly move her. 

When the tide began to run ebb, Mr. Bailey 
decided to return to the ship and report pro- 
gress — or rather the lack of it. I had been 
anxiously watching the operations from the 
ship, which I had anchored as near the beach 
as prudence permitted, and I was naturally 



CATCHING A TARTAR 233 

annoyed at the want of success on the part of 
my people. 

I presume my manner gave Mr. Bailey the 
impression that I attributed the failure to his 
insufficient effort, which was by no means 
the case, but I saw that he was very much 
dejected as he made his report. 

The officers talked the matter over together 
in the wardroom that evening, as I learned 
later on, and the next morning Mr. Taylor, 
who was my favorite boat officer, came to 
me after quarters and asked, as a special 
favor, permission to go in with three picked 
boat's crews that morning and, abandoning 
what seemed a well-nigh useless attempt to get 
the sloop afloat, to ■ unload her and tow the 
cotton, worth twenty or twenty-five thousand 
dollars, off to the ship. 

" I '11 guarantee to do it, captain," said the 
plucky fellow. " I propose to take in two or 
three coils of inch rope in the boats and 
after getting the bales afloat I can lash them 
together so that we can tow them off to the 
ship in this smooth water with our three 
boats." 

" It will be very hard work, Mr. Taylor, 



234 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

even if you get the bales afloat through the 
surf, which is doubtful. And I don't feel clear 
in my mind that it would be strictly in the 
line of duty. The sloop is ashore, and her 
blockade running can be put an end to for 
good and all by a match and a few pounds of 
powder, or we can knock her to pieces from 
the ship in target practice. Our men had a 
hard day's work yesterday for nothing, and I 
don't care to give them more of it." 

" I know that, sir ; but the crew are just 
crazy to do it. I should only take vohniteers, 
and there are twice as many ready to go as I 
require for the work." 

I saw that officers and men were alike anx- 
ious for the lark, as they considered it ; they 
were always ready when I called upon them 
for the severest duty, and so against my better 
judgment I gave way and consented. But 
I insisted that the first cutter, well armed, 
should remain outside the surf to cover the 
shore operations, and that under no circum- 
stances should she be taken off from guard 
duty. By this precaution alone I was saved 
from what would have otherwise been a very 
serious disaster. 



CATCHING A TARTAR 235 

Most of the forenoon was passed by the 
shore party in breaking out the bales and in 
warping them out to one of the boats outside 
the surf, and by noon nearly all the cotton 
was afloat. Just before twelve o'clock I was 
about giving the order to make the boat recall 
signal, for the men to come off to dinner, when 
I saw a series of puffs of smoke from the sand 
hills and heard the muffled reports of musketry. 
In a moment there was a rush of gray-coats 
toward my men, a rapid return fire from my 
guard boat, a struggle on the beach, plainly 
visible through the glass, two or three figures 
lay prone on the sand, and then the heads of 
men could be seen swimming from the beach 
out to the boat. One of the cutters was mean- 
while launched and forced out through the 
surf, the rebels keeping up an active fire at it, 
and then all was quiet, with two boats pulling 
out toward us and a group of rebels gathered 
about my whaleboat on the beach ! 

All this had not taken much longer in the 
action than it has in the telling, and we on 
board ship were so utterly surprised at the 
sudden attack, that for a moment we looked 
on in speechless amazement! But only for 



236 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

a moment, for the boatswain's call was not 
needed to bring all bands on deck, and the 
orders that rang out sharp and swift were 
obeyed with equal promptness. 

"Aloft, topmen and lower yard men, and 
loose toj^sails and courses ! Stand by to sheet 
home and hoist of all ! Stand by to slip the 
anchor ! Forecastle there ; clear away the 
rifle and get a range on those fellows ! Be 
careful, Mr. Allen, and give the gun elevation 
enough to clear our boats ! " 

The sails fell from the yards and flew to the 
mastheads, the courses were sheeted home and 
the tacks ridden down, the jibs ran uj), our 
anchors were slipped, and filling on the star- 
board tack we stood in for the land, the fore- 
castle gun, actively served, throwing shells 
among the rebels, who were taking shelter be- 
hind the sand hills. 

" Put a leadsman in the fore chains, sir ! 
Give me the soundings sharp, my lad ! " 

" And a quarter five," came the quick re- 
sponse. 

We were drawing sixteen feet, and that left 
but fifteen feet of water under my keeL I 
certainly could not go much farther in. 



CATCHING A TARTAR 237 

" Get another cast, and be quick tibout it I " 

" Qu-a-a-r-ter less five ! " 

" Stand by to tack ship ! Put your hebn 
down ! " 

''Andah-a-1-f four!" 

" Hard a lee ! Tacks and sheets ! Main- 
sail haid ! " 

The dear old barkey came up in the wind 
like a bird, lost her headway, paused, trem- 
bling, for a moment, and then filled on the 
other tack as the head yards flew round. We 
began to edge off shore again, while the call 
from the leadsman, " Quarter less four," 
warned me that we had got on the other tack 
none too soon. 

Out of danger with my ship, I could now turn 
my attention to the situation in shore, where 
I found two of my boats well off to me and 
the beach clear of the combatants, who did not 
care to face my fire ; but my white whaleboat 
had been run up inside of the sloop, and was 
temporarily abandoned. 

The two boats were soon alongside, and I 
learned, to my sorrow, that six men of the 
whaleboat crew were prisoners on shore and 
two of the second cutter's crew had been 



238 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

wounded in escaping. The abandoned cotton 
was meanwhile floating about in the breakers, 
a disagreeable reminder of the cause of our 
discomfiture. 

Mr. Taylor reported that when the rebels 
opened fire and made a rush for them, two 
of our boats were beached. The crew of the 
cutter ran their boat out and got her beyond 
the breakers under a heavy fire with only two 
wounded ; but the crew of the lighter boat 
were less fortunate, and were headed off by 
the rebels, and six of them were compelled to 
surrender at discretion. Several of the Con- 
federates were wounded by the fire from our 
guard boat, and Mr. Taylor thought that two 
of them were killed. 

The next day I sent in a flag of truce boat 
to Colonel Hobbie, in command of the Con- 
federates, and endeavored to effect an ex- 
change of my men for several rebel prisoners 
I had on board ; but failing in that attempt, 
I sent my boys their clothing and a liberal 
supply of tobacco. All of this, however, as I 
learned, was confiscated by the rebels, and none 
of their property ever came into the hands of 
my men. 



CATCHING A TARTAR 239 

The following day I found that my whale- 
boat had been taken away during the previous 
night, so I went to quarters for target practice 
and speedily knocked the sloop into kindling 
wood with our broadside battery, — as I should 
have done at first, — and so brought that epi- 
sode to a close. 

Six months later, while the Anderson w^as at 
New Orleans, Harry Benson, the coxswain of 
my whaleboat, who was one of those captured, 
came off to the ship and reported for duty. 
He had escaped from the prison pen at Mat- 
agorda wearing an old Confederate uniform 
he had managed to purchase, and had actually 
walked, nearly six hundred miles, through 
Texas to New Orleans ! 



CHAPTER IX 

THE NAVAL TRAITOR 

The following spring the commodore or- 
dered the Anderson to New Orleans to refit, 
and while there an official letter came to me 
from the Navy Department detaching me from 
the West Gulf Squadron and granting me two 
months' leave of absence, with orders to report 
at the expiration of that time to the officer 
commanding at Cairo, Illinois, for service in 
the Mississippi Squadron, which was then un- 
der the command of Rear Admiral David D. 
Porter. 

Oil inquiry I found that I was one of the 
half dozen officers selected as a contingent 
from the West Gulf Squadron to be placed in 
command of Porter's fleet of river steamers, 
which had been transformed into vessels of 
War. 

As the fighting was all over in our depart- 
ment since the capture of Mobile, and as there 



THE NAVAL TRAITOR 241 

was a decided novelty in the river fleet, I did 
not object to this transfer, more particularly 
as a furlough was the agreeable accompani- 
ment of the change. 

So I went home, and of course thoroughly 
enjoyed every moment of the first leave of ab- 
sence I had obtained for more than three 
years. I found my only little baby, whom I 
had never seen, grown into quite a child of 
two and a half years, who would scarcely 
come to the .stranger in uniform she had 
never seen, who called her daughter. And 
there were other family changes, some of them 
very sad ones, but in those busy war-days we 
had little time for sentiment. 

Like everything else in this world, my two 
months' furlough soon passed, and I bade every- 
one good-by, and took the train for Cairo. 
And a vile hole it was in the early spring of 
1864, the streets flooded and almost impassable 
and the wretched hotels filled with soldiers, 
gamblers, and the ruck that always hang about 
the skirts of an army. 

When I reported to Commodore Pennock, 
he was kind enough to say that he wanted me 
with him at the Naval Station at Mound City, 



242 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

a few miles above Cairo, and so I moved out 
there and was acting as executive officer of the 
Navy Yard, as we called it, when the rebel 
General N. B. Forrest, in April, made his fa- 
mous — or infamous — assault on Fort Pillow, 
a few miles below us, carrying it by storm and 
massacring a large number of the colored 
troops who were defending the work. 

The mangled survivors of this affair were 
brought at once up to our naval hospital at 
Mound City, and we improvised beds as best 
we could for their accommodation. General 
Forrest is still living, I believe, and I under- 
stand that he denies that any extraordinary 
cruelty was manifested by his conquering 
troops. But I speak from my own observation ; 
and although it is now thirty years ago, the 
recollection of the horrors we saw among those 
poor mangled negroes is still fresh in my 
mind, as are the stories of the dying that were 
poured into our ears. 

It was a brutal, cowardly massacre, pure and 
simple, and no amount of attempted explana- 
tion can make it anything else. It was only one 
sad episode of a cruel war, but it was an epi- 
sode worthy of Alva, " the Spanish Butcher." 



THE NAVAL TRAITOR 243 

To convict the man, it is only necessary to 
read his original dispatch to the Confederate 
government, which fortunately is still preserved 
as a double evidence of his brutality and his 
illiteracy. It reads : " We busted the fort 
at ninerclock and scatered the niors'ers. The 
men is still a cillenem [killing them] in the 
woods. Them as was cotch with spoons and 
brestpins and sich was cilled and the rest was 
payrolled and told to git." 

Not long after this event, Connnodore Pen- 
nock sent for me, one day, and handed me my 
orders to the command of the ironclad Ben- 
ton, then at anchor off Natchez, and suggested 
that I had better take the first steamer from 
Cairo down to my new ship. 

In a way this was a piece of good fortune. 
The Benton had been at different times the 
flagship of both Admirals C. W. Davis and 
David D. Porter, and she was the largest ves- 
sel on the river and carried the heaviest arma- 
ment. The trouble was that she was a very 
slow ship, and against the strong Mississippi 
current, going up stream she could scarcely 
make four knots an hour. 

However, she had spacious quarters for her 



244 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

commanding officer, albeit they were directly 
over tlie boilers ; and she was the division flag- 
ship, which carried a certain distinction ; while 
if she ever should get into a fight again she had 
the weight of metal to make her a very formid- 
able opponent. So I packed my traps and 
was soon steaming down the river on the fine 
passenger steamer Olive for my new command. 

The torrid heat of a waning July day was 
being tempered by the delicious evening breeze 
that' was blowing up the Mississippi River as 
I sat aft on the berth deck of my ship smoking 
a post-prandial cigar in one of the ports and 
trying to make up my mind to get into my even- 
ing togs and go on shore to make a long-post- 
poned call. I had now been several months in 
command of the Benton, and on the whole 
they had not been unpleasant nor altogether 
unprofitable months. 

The navy was just then very busily engaged 
in keeping up a close patrol of the river to pre- 
vent the Confederate trans-Mississippi army 
in Arkansas, under the command of General 
Dick Taylor and Prince Polignac, from cross- 
ing over the river and effecting a junction with 



THE NAVAL TRAITOR 245 

General Joe Johnston, which they were very 
desirous of accomplishing. 

Cooped up where they were, these twenty- 
five thousand Confederates, with an abundance 
of military stores obtained from English ships 
at the mouth of the Kio Grande, did no par- 
ticular harm ; but let them get on the other 
side of the river and they would make a very 
material difference in the comfort of Sherman, 
who was then starting on his famous march 
through Georgia. 

The navy was expected to prevent this pas- 
sage of the river by keeping up an incessant 
patrol day and night, and thus a crossing of 
the army in force was an impossibility. We 
were constantly capturing rebel deserters, or 
stray couriers with letters from the Confeder- 
ate leaders to Johnston ; and' occasionally, no 
doubt, some escaped us, but not many of them, 
I imagine. 

I wish to emphasize the vital importance to 
us of keeping this patrol effective, and the 
great value it would be to the rebels to break 
it, as this has an important bearing upon the 
incident I am about to relate. 

The ship stationed next above me had been 



246 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

the light-armored (we called them tin-clad) 
steamer — Brilliant I will call her, although 
that was not her name. She was commanded 
by Acting Master Daniel Glenny, a native of 
Connecticut, a bright, active young officer, an 
excellent seaman, and a man who had always 
impressed me favorably. 

As I was his senior officer and for the time 
commanding the division, Glenny always came 
on board the Benton to report when our ships 
met, which was almost daily, and I had often 
had him at dinner with me, and had come to 
know him intimately. A few weeks before 
this evening he had been ordered to a beat 
thirty miles farther up the river, not far from 
Skipwith's Landing, and consequently I had 
not seen him for perhaps a month. 

As I sat in the port smoking and dreaming 
of home, my orderly came up and said the 
officer of the deck reported that a tug was 
steaming up the river, and that she had sig- 
naled, " I wish to communicate." 

I at once went on deck, and by that time 
the tug was within hail. 

" Tug ahoy ! " 

" Aye, aye, sir ! " 



THE NAVAL TRAITOR 247 

" What tug is that ? Don't come any 
nearer at present ! " 

"This is the Rover, sir. I have special 
orders for you from Commodore Morris from 
New Orleans." 

" Very well ; steam up under my quarter 
and come on board ! " 

The tug came near, and as she touched our 
overhang we lowered a side ladder, and an 
officer in uniform came on board and handed 
me an official document. 

I went down to my cabin, opened the letter, 
and read : — 

A. V. Lieut. Robert Kelson, Commanding U. S. S. 
Benton : 

Sir, — Upon the receipt of this order you will at 
once detach your executive officer and order him to 
proceed immediately, without any delay, in the tug 
Rover up the river to the U. S. S. Brilliant, where he 
will take command of that vessel, putting her com- 
manding officer, Acting Master Daniel Glenny, in close 
confinement. 

When this duty is accomplished send the Rover back 
to me here. Very Respt'y, 

Yr. Obt. Servant, 
(Signed) Henry W. Morris, 

Commodore Commanding West Gulf Squadron. 



248 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

Here was a pretty kettle of fisli ! And what 
did it all mean ? I touched my bell. " Or- 
derly, send the captain of the Rover down here 
to me." 

The ensign in command of the tug came 
down to my cabin. " Captain," said I, " do 
you know what duty you are on ? " 

" No, sir ; except that I was to give you a 
letter and then follow your instructions." 

" You have no idea of the contents of this 
letter ? " 

" I have n't the least idea, sir." 

44 Yqyj well, I shall send an officer up the 
river with you to-night to the Brilliant. You 
will find' her not far below Skipwith's, I fancy. 
Go on board your tug, sir, and be all ready to 
proceed up the river within an hour." 

The officer bowed and retired. Then I 
sent for my executive, Mr. Willetts, feeling as 
though I were in a dream. He was a plain, 
straightforward man with no more imagina- 
tion in his composition than a boarding pike. 
When I read the commodore's orders to him, 
he merely said, " Shall I put Captain Glenny 
in irons, sir?" 

I had never thought of that unpleasant 



THE NAVAL TRAITOR 249 

detail in the affair, and could have beaten 
Willetts for the suggestion. 

" The commodore says ' close confinement,' 
sir," he added. 

'' Yes, Mr. Willetts ; but I think confinement 
to his stateroom, with possibly a sentry on the 
guards and another at the door of his room, 
will be near enough to close confinement un- 
til we get further orders. I can see nothing 
in this disj)atch to warrant me in subjecting 
an officer to the indignity of irons." 

So I packed Willetts off within the hour and 
turned in for a sleej)less night in my berth, 
with the j^roblem running through my brain, 
" What on earth has Glenny been doing to 
get him into this scrape ? " 

Three evenino^s after that eventful nio-ht a 
vessel was seen steaming down the river show- 
ing the Brilliant's night signal. She passed 
us, rounded to astern of the Benton, and then 
steamed up within hailing distance. j 

" Benton ahoy ! " came the hail in Willett's 
familiar voice. " I wish to communicate, sir. 
Can I come alongside ? " 

" Very well ; come on board yourself." 



250 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

I heard the captain's gig called away, and 
in a few minutes Willetts, looking as pale as 
a ghost, stood in my cabin. 

" Captain Kelson " — he stammered. 

" What has happened to you, sir ? " I 
queried, for the man's manner warned me that 
something was wrong. 

" Captain Glenny escaped last night, sir ! " 
he said, as he sank into a chair. 

" Escaped ! " 

And then he told me as much of the story 
as he knew, which was later supplemented, bit 
by bit, from different sources. 

Three months before, Glenny had made the 

acquaintance of a Miss , a very bright, 

dashing girl, devoted to the cause of the Con- 
federacy and willing, as she often boasted, to 
sacrifice anything but her honor for her coun- 
try. She lived near the river, within Glenny's 
beat, and she soon discovered that he was 
attracted by her beauty, which was very strik- 
ing, and it was not long until she had made 
him her willing and abject slave, body and 
soul. 

Of the details of the affair we could learn 
little except that she came on board the Bril- 



THE NAVAL TRAITOR 251 

liant almost daily and Glenny visited her very 
frequently on sliore. But tins we did discover : 
that for love of this girl the young officer at 
last became a traitor and actually entered into 
a compact with the rebel officer commanding 
on shore to deliver up his ship to the Confed- 
erates. 

The consideration for this treachery was to 
be a major's commission in their army, a hun- 
dred bales of cotton, and one hundred thou- 
sand dollars in gold, while, as it was under- 
stood, the girl promised to marry Glenny when 
the deed was accomplished. 

A plan was arranged by which a body of 
the Brilliant's crew was to be given liberty on 
shore to go to a negro ball on a certain night, 
when the Confederates were to come off in 
boats in large numbers and take possession of 
the steamer, Glenny making a mere nominal 
resistance. 

The sailors were duly sent on shore to the 
dance ; but through a suspicion on the part of 
a vigilant junior officer of the Brilliant, the 
consummation of the plot was thwarted and 
the attempted surprise failed. 

Meanwhile, news of the j^roposed plan was 



252 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

carried clown to New Orleans by a deserter 
from Dick Taylor's corps, and it came to Com- 
modore Morris, who took prompt action by 
sending to me to place Glenny under arrest. 

Mr. Willetts told me that he obeyed my or- 
ders by placing Captain Glenny under close 
arrest, and had stationed a sentry at the door 
of his stateroom and another at the window, 
which opened on the guards. The first night, 
however, at midnight, Glenny quietly got up, 
dressed himseK, and, looking out of the win- 
dow, said in a calm voice to the sentry, " Take 
this pitcher to the scuttle butt and bring me 
some cool water ! " 

With the instinctive impulse of obedience to 
a commanding officer, the man at once obeyed 
and went for the water, without a second 
thought. 

During his absence Glenny crawled out of 
the window to the guards and lowered himself 
down by a rope into a small fishing-canoe they 
had towing alongside. He then cut the painter, 
and in a moment he had dropped astern in the 
swift current and vanished in the darkness ! 

We never saw Glenny again, but I heard of 
him a couple of years later from a Texan who 



THE NAVAL TRAITOR 253 

had met him, micler another name, in the Con- 
federacy at about the time of Lee's surrender. 

One thing is very sure : had the rebels suc- 
ceeded in getting* possession of the Brilliant, 
as they planned, and had obtained her signal 
book from Glenny, they could have filled her 
with armed men, steamed down to the Benton, 
made their night number and ran alongside of 
us without exciting suspicion, and, pouring a 
large body of men on my decks, could have 
captured my ship almost without a struggle. 

Then, under cover of the Benton, the trans- 
Mississippi army could readily have crossed 
the river ; and with such a body of fresh, well- 
armed men in his rear, Sherman might never 
have reached the seaboard. Slighter chances 
than this have changed the course of mighty 
campaigns, as all know who have read history. 

In conclusion, I wish to say that this inci- 
dent is veritable truth, entirely uncolored, and 
a bit of unwritten history of the only naval 
traitor of the great Civil War. 



CHAPTER X 

HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS 

Early in September, 1864, after Admiral 
Porter had been transferred to tbe North At- 
lantic Squadron, I was ordered from the Ben- 
ton to the command of the United States 
steamer Tyler, relieving Lieutenant Com- 
mander Edward Pritchett, who, in command 
of the Tyler, had also been in charge of the 
White River division of the Mississippi 
Squadron. 

The Tyler, like the Benton, was a ship 
with a history. She was one of the two steam- 
ers that had performed such excellent service 
at the battle of Pittsburg Landing; and the 
navy claimed that those two boats really saved 
the day on the 6th of April, by keeping a 
large body of Albert Sidney Johnston's army 
in check and covering our disorganized troops 
that had been driven down to the bank of the 
river. By thus preventing the rebel attack 



HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS 255 

until the next day, Buell was enabled to effect 
a junction with Grant, and then turn what 
had been a check to our arms into a decided 
* victory for the Union. It is quite certain that 
Grant in his dispatches spoke in very high 
terms of the service rendered by the gunboats 
on that occasion. 

The Tyler was a large high-pressure wooden 
steamer, entirely unarmored, her wheels un- 
usually far aft, and with two very tall smoke- 
stacks. In fitting her for the naval service 
she had been divested of all her upper or 
" hurricane deck " and " texas," thus giving 
her a flush spar deck three quarters of her 
length, with a spacious poop deck, raised some 
six feet, which afforded comfortable cabins for 
the commander. 

She moimted ten 8-incli guns of sixty-three 
hundredweight on the berth deck, ^ 30-pound 
Parrott rifle on the forecastle, and two brass 
12-pounders on the poop. This was a very 
formidable battery for a river steamer; and 
as she was very high out of the water, when 
the river was at a good stage her guns com- 
manded the low banks and could sweep the 
level country for a great distance. 



256 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

Captain Pritchett was a very vigilant and 
active young officer, and lie kept the Tyler in 
a high state of efficiency, and nearly always 
in motion, so that she had earned from the 
Confederates the name of the " Black Devil," 
from her color and her apparent ubiquity. 

Late in October, 1864, Major-General E. R. 
S. Canby, who was at the time in command of 
the military division of the West Mississippi, 
with headquarters at New Orleans, came up 
to White River on the passenger steamer 
General Lyon on a tour of inspection of our 
army in Arkansas. Brigadier-General Magin- 
nis was in command of ten thousand United 
States troops encamped at the mouth of 
White River. 

This point was also my headquarters with 
the Tyler ; and as I happened to be there at 
the time, I made an official call upon General 
Canby, which he returned, and he afterward 
dined with me on board my ship. 

In this way I came to know that a move- 
ment of our army up the White River in force 
was contemplated, with a view of flanking 
General Dick Taylor and thus retrieving, if 
possible, the laurels lost in the unfortunate 



HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS 251 
campaign up the Atchafalaya earlier iu the 



season. 



General Canby, was very anxious to make 
a personal reconnaissance of the White River. 
So, at his request, I dispatched the Hastings 
up the river with the general and his staff 
on the morning of November 3, that he might 
obtain a clear idea of the proposed field of 
operations. 

All went well with the expedition until the 
following day, when, in passing close in to the 
bank at a bend in the river, a concealed guer- 
rilla fired at the general, who was seated on a 
camp-stool on the upper deck of the boat, and 
wounded him very severely in the thigh. 

Our steamer at once opened fire upon the 
bushwhacker, but he escaped into the adjoin- 
ing woods, evidently uninjured. As the gen- 
eral was found to be suffering severely from 
his wound and the surgeon was unable to ex- 
tract the ball, Captain Rogers very properly 
decided to return at once to White River 
station. 

Upon the arrival of the Hastings a consul- 
tation of army surgeons was held on board, 
and it was their unanimous opinion that the 



258 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

general could not be moved with safety, and 
that he must be sent down to New Orleans at 
once. 

Accordingly General Maginnis came to me 
and expressed an earnest desire to have the 
Hastings sent down the river. 

This was clearly beyond my authority, as 
the limits of oui* division only extended to 
Natchez, and from there to New Orleans the 
river was in charge of vessels of another 
squadron. But realizing the exigency, I first 
obtained an official requisition from General 
Maginnis, and then, severing the red tape, 
sent the Hastings off with the sorely wounded 
officer on my own responsibility. 

After several months General Canby recov- 
ered and wrote me a very charming note from 
New Orleans acknowledging what he was 
pleased to call my courtesy, and in due time 
the Navy Department, with much less warmth, 
also acknowledged my official report of what 
I had done and condoned my unwarranted 
assumption of authority in consideration of 
the circumstances. So every one was satisfied 
excepting Captain Kogers. That gentleman, 
however, seemed to feel himself personally 



HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS ' 259 

aggrieved in having had his steamer bush- 
whacked, and nothing would satisfy him but 
an attempt at retaliation. 

A Union scout, who had been on a mission 
up the White River lately, came into our camp, 
and from him we learned that the cowardly 
shot that wounded General Canby had been 
fired by a man named Kane, who lived near 
by the point where he had bushwhacked our 
steamer. Graves said that Kane boasted of 
having shot the general, and the scout informed 
us that his house was the headquarters for all 
the guerrillas of the neighborhood, who were 
but little better than robbers, as they were 
largely Confederate deserters, and preyed upon 
their own people as well as upon the " Yanks," 
as we were called. 

After talking the matter over with Rogers 
and Graves, I consented to join in an effort to 
capture Kane and his gang, and I detailed my 
executive officer, Mr. Wilson, with fifty men 
to accompany me with Captain Rogers in the 
raid. 

As there was no moon, we decided to make 
the attempt at once ; and as we wished to reach 
Kane's house late at night, we started at a very 



260 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

early liour in the morning, no information of 
the projected raid being given out, as snch 
news had a way of traveling overland to the 
Confederates in a most unaccountable manner. 

In fact it was announced carelessly on shore 
that the Hastings was going up to Cairo for 
repairs, so when she was missed the next morn- 
ing it was assumed that she had gone there. 

We steamed very quietly up the White 
River to a point where a bayou made in to the 
stream, some dozen miles below Kane's planta- 
tion, and, turning the boat, backed her up the 
bayou about a mile to a bend where she was 
completely concealed by the overhanging Cot- 
tonwood trees, draped with their long pendants 
of moss. 

Here we waited for night. At eleven o'clock 
we cast off from the bank and steamed down 
the bayou and into the main river, which we 
ascended with great caution, literally feeling 
our way, until Graves assured me that we were 
but a scant mile below Kane's house. We 
then ran in to the bank and, securing the boat 
to the trunk of a great tree, landed our shore 
party, which altogether numbered one hundred 
and ten officers and men. 



HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS 261 

We took up the line of march, Graves ahead, 
Rogers and I following closely, as indeed was 
very necessary in the darkness, and the men 
coming after us in double file and in as close 
order as was practicable. 

The road was abominable, a mere cow]3ath, 
in many places grown up and almost impass- 
able, and shortly after leaving the steamer we 
were compelled to cross a run where the water 
was knee-deep ; but at last we came in sight of 
the house, a long, low, story and a half struc- 
ture, part log, part frame, surrounded on two 
sides by a broad porch. At a short distance 
and near the woods, which on that side came 
quite close to the home buildings, were three 
wretched cabins or negro quarters, a half- 
ruined ginhouse, a smokehouse, two very large 
corn cribs, and a high-roofed barn. 

No lights were visible, and as it was past 
midnight it was probable that all the inmates 
of the house were asleep. Of course it was 
necessary to surround the house closely, to 
avoid the escape of our quarry ; but the danger 
in that operation lay in arousing the dogs, al- 
ways so numerous and so watchful on a South- 
ern plantation, and thus giving the alarm. 



262 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

Graves suggested to me in a whisper that he 
and Captain Rogers had better take one por- 
tion of the men and, after falling back some 
little distance, make a detour, so that they 
could approach the house from the rear and 
farther side, while I should remain where I 
was and guard the front and near side. 

" When you hear an owl hoot three times 
and after a pause hoot once, you may know 
that we are in position and ready to close in. 
I will then wait five minutes and rej)eat the 
same signal. When you hear it, captain, 
close in with your party, side and front, and 
we will have them trapped, sure." 

I deferred to Graves's suggestions, as he 
was quite a famous scout. " But," said I, 
" Mr. Graves, I hope you can make your owl 
hoots very natural. You know these fellows 
we are after are quite familiar with woodcraft, 
and they woidd only be aroused and made sus- 
picious by a bad imitation of an owl." 

" Don't you fear for that, captain. I can 
cheat the owls themselves, let alone these but- 
ternuts." 

Graves and Rogers left us with their party, 
disappearing as silently in the gloomy shadows 



HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS 263 

of the night as wood goblins. I gathered my 
own men closely together, warned them in low 
tones against making the least noise, and then 
waited patiently for the signal. 

While on board the boat or during the ex- 
citement of the march, I had not felt the cold ; 
but now that we were quiet I found myself 
chilled to the bone, notwithstanding my thick 
pea-jacket, which I wore with my sword and 
pistol belt buckled outside of it. Occasionally 
I heard the distant baying of a hound ; a pos- 
sum or rabbit rustled through the dead leaves 
as he crossed the path, and once I heard the 
hoot of an owl from the woods in the rear of 
the house we were watching. I listened anx- 
iously, but there was only a single call, evidently 
not from our companions. Then I heard what 
boded ill for the success of our venture — the 
sharp yelj) of a foxhound near the barn, and 
soon it was repeated nearer at hand ! 

"The brute has scented us, sir," said Mr. 
Watson, "and he will have the whole place 
alarmed if he is not stopped. What shall 
we do?" 

But before he had finished speaking, three 
distant hoots of an owl were heard. We 



264 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

paused, and in a moment they were followed 
by a single hoot, and then all was still. 

" Five minutes more, Watson, and we will 
make our rush. Let the cur bark if he will." 

Again the hoot of the owl broke the still- 
ness of the night, this time nearer, and, giving 
the word, we rushed at double-quick from our 
cover ,^ deployed, and, as our comrades ap- 
peared, we had the house closely surrounded 
on every side. 

"Keep a sharp lookout, Mr. Watson, and 
do not let a living soul pass your line. Don't 
parley with any who may try to escape. If 
they fail to stop and throw up their hands, 
shoot ! We have shrewd and dangerous men 
to deal with, sir." 

With Rogers, Graves, and a dozen men I 
mounted the steps of the porch and knocked 
loudly at the door. There was no reply, but 
we could hear movements within. 

" Better not wait, captain," said Graves ; 
"the Lord only knows what trick they may 
be up to. I would break in the door." And 
break it in we did. 

Then, turning the slides of our boat lan- 
terns, we flashed the light into the hall, which 



HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS 265 

was bare and empty. Near the foot of tlie 
stairs was a rough cedar settle with a row of 
pegs, from which hmig a quantity of feminine 
wraps of various kinds and colors, with a 
dozen or more bonnets and worsted head cov- 
erings, but not a single masculine garment 
or hat, save a dilapidated old broad-brimmed 
straw, which had evidently been left ovfer from 
the past summer. 

I saw Graves gazing at this array of wo- 
men's gear with a puzzled look on his face. 

" Why, captain, this looks more like a 
young ladies' boarding-school than a bush- 
whacker's crib. What does it mean, I won- 
der ? " 

A feeble light flashed over the banisters 
from the upper landing, and a tremulous fe- 
male voice exclaimed, " What is it you want 
here, gentlemen, at this time of night ? " 

" Well, madam," I replied, " we want Mr. 
Kane for one, and such of his friends — men, 
I mean, not women — as may be here." 

" Mr. Kane is not here, sir, I assure you." 

u J regret to doubt your word, madam, but 
it is my painful duty to search this house, and 
I must do it quickly. Please dress yourseK at 



266 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

once, for I can allow you only five minutes for 
your toilet." 

The lady gave a little scream. " Oli, sir, 
you must n't come up here with all those men. 
It is quite impossible. There are none here 
but women. There is n't a man in the house." 

" Where are the men, then ? " I queried. 

She hesitated, but only for a moment. 
" Cousin Bob and the boys are all away at a 
dance at Mr. Shriveley's, five miles up the 
Greenberry road. They won't be back until 
morning." 

Graves drew me aside. " She is fibbing ; 
did n't you notice how she hesitated ? Those 
men are upstairs, and we shall have to go up 
for them." 

It was very probable that he was right, so I 
said : " Madam, much as I regret it, my duty 
is plain. Your house is surrounded by the 
forces of the United States, under my com- 
mand. I must search this house for the per- 
sons I have come here to arrest, and I shall do 
it, disturbing you as little as possible. You 
can have five minutes undisturbed in which to 
dress yourself — not a moment more." 

She saw that I was in earnest and hurried 



HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS 2G7 

away. Sending some men with Mr. Watson 
to .thorougUy search the lower rooms, we went 
upstairs at the expiration of the five minutes, 
and found three large chambers with dormer 
windows giving upon the roof. The first room 
we entered had two beds, and by the dim light 
of our lantern four heads could be seen buried 
beneath the bed clotliing. 

" Well, sir," said the lady we had first en- 
countered, as she entered the room wearing a 
morning wrapper, with a shawl drawn about 
her shoulders, "are you satisfied that I told 
you the truth and that there are no men 
here ? " 

The smothered giggle that came from be- 
neath the blankets was unmistakably feminine. 
Our position was certainly becoming embarrass- 
ing, not to say ridiculous, and I was beginning 
to feel very uncomfortable under the gaze of 
the lady who was acting as spokeswoman. 

To tell the honest truth, I would rather have 
been facing a ten-gun battery just then — and 
the worst of it was that the woman evidently 
knew it. 

Graves, who was of a coarser temperament, 
came to the rescue : " Madam," said he. 



268 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

" Captain Kelson has already told you that we 
are here on duty and that we must perform it. 
I£ the persons in these beds are women, let 
them put out their hands, — they can keep 
their faces hid if they choose, — and we will 
be satisfied," and he looked at me for my 
assent. 

" That is a fair proposition, madam, and will 
bring this disagreeable business to an end," 
said I. 

The lady hesitated, then went to the beds 
and whispered to the occupants, and out came 
four white, ringed, and very shapely hands from 
beneath the coverings. 

" I am satisfied," madam, said I, and as a 
matter of form Mr. Graves will accompany 
you alone to the other chambers and put the 
occupants to the same test." 

Graves went with the lady, while we waited 
in the hall, and when he returned he was al- 
most dumb with amazement. 

" There are sixteen women in this house, 
not counting the madam here, and not a ghost 
of a man ! What does it mean ? I feel as 
though I had been raiding a nunnery ! " 

We went downstairs acompanied by our fair 



HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS 269 

friend, who, strange to say, now that our 
search was over, seemed uncommonly willing 
to talk, carefully evading our questions, how- 
ever, when we endeavored to obtain some clue 
to this houseful of girls, — for most of them 
were evidently young women. 

While I was apologizing as best I could 
for our ungallant and untimely visit, there 
was the report of a musket outside, and as 
we rushed to the porch a half dozen scattering 
shots were heard in the direction of the barn, 
while the hounds set up a dismal howl. 

Mr. Watson came toward me in a great 
state of excitement. 

" They have got away, sir ! " 

" Who have got away ? " 

" The men ! There were a dozen of them in 
the barn and hearing us they quietly broke a 
board out at the back and got away in the 
woods. The last man of them made a noise 
and attracted our attention, and we tried to 
catch him ; but he had the start of us and got 
away with the rest of them ! " 

It was even so ; while we were searching the 
house and were being detained by the fluent 
young woman, her friends were escaping. 



270 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

It seems they had had a little dance at the 
house, and a number of girls had ridden over 
to take part in it. When it was finished it 
was too late for them to go to their homes, so 
their hostess had doubled them up in her beds, 
and the men had quartered themselves in the 
barn and thus escaped capture. 

We returned to the Hastings and made the 
best of our way back to our headquarters, 
with very little to say to the outside world 
concerning our raid. This episode, however, 
commencing in comedy, had a tragic ending 
for at least one of the actors. 

Graves, the scout, was soon after sent on a 
special mission by the general on the other side 
of the river, not far from Jackson, within the 
Confederate lines. By an unfortunate chance 
he there met, face to face, one day, the young 
woman who had parleyed with us at her cousin's 
house on White River. Graves was in Con- 
federate uniform, which he often wore on these 
scouting expeditions, but the woman recognized 
him at once and denounced him to the military 
authorities. He was arrested, tried before a 
drum -head court martial, and was hanged 
within twelve hours ! 



CHAPTER XI 

THE END OF THE STRUGGLE 

On the 9th of the following April, 1865, 
General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army 
of Virginia to General U. S. Grant, beneath 
the famous Appomattox apple-tree, and our 
long civil war was practically closed. 

For months afterward, straggling bands of 
Confederates would come riding down to the 
banks of the river on the Mississippi and 
Arkansas coasts, and, waving flags of truce, 
ask for confirmation of the news they had 
heard, that " the old man had surrendered." 
The gunboats had been supplied with official 
printed copies of the terms of capitulation 
accepted by Lee, and we gave these out freely. 

It was an interesting sight to watch these 
war-worn veterans as, with varying emotions, 
they read the documents that proved to them 
that the cause for which they had fought so 
long and so well was irretrievably lost. 



272 IN THE NAVAL SERVICE 

Most of them frankly accepted the situation 
at once ; some seemed relieved that the disas- 
trous struggle was at last over ; all were sur- 
prised and gratified to find that they were 
to have Grant's liberal terms, — permission to 
retain their side-arms, horses, and saddles. 

So they went their way to their several 
plantations, saddened men, but with an evi- 
dent determination to devote themselves in the 
future much more closely to their own private 
affairs and to give politics the go-by. 

In the summer of 1865 the Navy Depart- 
ment issued a circular to the large body of 
volunteer officers in the navy, notifying them 
that as hostilities had ceased, the department 
would accept the resignations of such as de- 
sired to return to private life. 

And so in July, I, with many other of my 
brother officers, sent in my resignation, which 
was accepted with the thanks of the department 
" for long and faithful service," and I received 
my honorable discharge, a document which, 
duly framed, now hangs over my library fire- 
place, crossed by the sword which I had worn 
during the four eventful years of the civil 
war. 



THE END OF THE STRUGGLE 273 

Since 1865 the old sailor whose career you 
have followed has had no more hairbreadth 
'scaj)es by field or flood, such as have been 
here set down, and, barring a couple of peace- 
ful passages to and from Europe in a pas- 
senger steamer, he has seen nothing more of 
the sea than could be observed from the rocks 
of Nahant or Mt. Desert on a summer after- 
noon. He meets his old shipmates occasion- 
ally at the dinners of the Loyal Legion, and 
enjoys listening to a good yarn on these occa- 
sions with as much zest as he did a full half 
century ago, when as a boy in the old Bombay 
he used to coil himself up near the windlass 
bitts on his first voyage to sea. 

And now, after closing this record of more 
than twenty busy years of a sailor's life in 
both branches of the service, the writer, from 
his cosy chimney corner, bids his readers re- 
luctantly that saddest of all words, good-by. 



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